Leadership Vs. Managing People

Leadership vs. Managing People

How should we manage people? Is there a choice?

Managing people would seem to be just another discipline, just another area in which a body of knowledge, including theory, has been accumulated. This knowledge should form the basis for a set of discrete, definable procedures which if followed should yield the desired results. But "should" never occurs on any day of the week. If it had, there would be no need for my book.

If you want to become a mechanical engineer and are willing to invest 4 years and $100,000, there are a host of universities and colleges that will eagerly commit themselves to the task. I would say your chances of emerging with useful knowledge, assuming you graduate, are as high as 80 percent. After graduation, if I line up ten of you and direct you to analyze a machine with a problem, at least 6 or 7 will agree on the problem. If I make you all agree on the problem and ask for the fix, I may even get six of you to agree on the same fix.

The above can be done in many disciplines like accounting and nuclear physics. Don't try it in management of people. From what I have seen, the chance of getting even two of ten bosses to agree on the problem or on the fix is low.

The reason for this inability to agree is that management styles vary considerably and we are encouraged to pick one that suits ourselves, our personality or whatever. But who would recommend that a boss' personality or style be taken down to a machine and used to determine what to do with that machine. "Hey stupid, don't pull that stunt. Just get yourself down there and try like hell to determine the problem using these specific tests and then determine the solutions based on this set of defined knowledge. It has nothing to do with you personally." But somehow when it comes to dealing with people, we want to superimpose our style and our personality, our likes and dislikes on the process. You dislike Phillips head screwdrivers, but you like flat head screwdrivers. I am certain that those feelings will not help you when you try to turn a Phillips head screw with a flat head screwdriver. The same is true for managing people.

The people management arena is strewn with hundreds of these EXCUSES, such as "I don't like to ---" or "I can't bear to ---". We have all heard them. The actions evaded range from not being able to get up in front of a group to not wanting to counsel an employee, from not wanting to terminate to not being able to provide succor in a time of need. The Excuses to justify these evasions range from personality to "I don't want to hurt someone" to "the moon was blue last night". There are also many people who would like to blame the sociologists, psychologists, psychiatrists, religious, consultants and others for their own management errors. Excuses will always be available to anyone who is looking for them, especially to those who enjoy the permissiveness of the "doing your own thing" vogue. But recognize that all of these Excuses are INVALID.

As with machines, Excuses will always limit your success with people, if not cause outright failure. Listen to yourself using them (we all do) and get as far away in the other direction as possible.

You must not decide what a person should be given based on what you have to give, only on what that person needs. Throw away your excuses and your management style. Use your common sense and the same logical, methodical approach required to solve technical issues.

The Natural Law

Believe it or not, the SCIENCE OF MANAGING PEOPLE IS THE SCIENCE OF LEADERSHIP, pure and simple, no more, no less. Whether or not the CEO or boss wants to admit it, the SHIP IS ITS CAPTAIN. This is what actually happens and the boss (CEO or lower) has no control over this. He/she can't stop it, modify it, wish or order it away. It is a natural LAW that operates inexorably and without regard for the human beings involved. The process that results WAITS FOR NO ONE. It just happens day in and day out.

Therefore, no matter what the actions are, the words, facial expressions, body language, verbal or written orders or policies, support for subordinates, habits, personality traits, inactions through silence, or other boss behavior, these are FOLLOWED by most juniors simply because the great majority of them are Followers. The subordinates become what the boss projects. If the boss works hard, they tend to work hard.