As a values-based management consultancy, much of our work focuses on the human issues of leadership such as dignity and respect, appreciation and gratitude, vision and inspiration.
The idea of being a leader of people, not just processes and programs, strikes a chord in countless managers and supervisors. Yet time and again they say that no matter what they do, that’s not the way their supervisor behaves. That’s not how they themselves are treated. That’s not the way things are done around here.
Regardless of their personal preferences, they tell us, they have only limited influence over the culture of their organization. Even if they wanted to change the system, they couldn’t. They wouldn’t be allowed to.
That’s true, we say. Then we start talking about pockets of excellence.
The idea is simple: while leaders have minimal influence outside the scope of their authority, they have nearly unlimited control within it.
Leaders are the ones who set the culture for the employees who report to them. They are the ones who articulate the expectations for their department or office. They are, for all intents and purpose, the CEO of the human system they head. And it is within their power to build create excellence within that sub-system, no matter how dysfunctional or counterproductive the rest of the organization might be.
A friend of ours once worked in an organization headed by a man greatly admiring of the managerial style of the Third Reich. “The way they clicked their heels when they saluted,” he enthused, “now that’s respect.”
Sounds horrible, right? But our colleague stayed in the organization for over a decade. Why? Because he reported not to the CEO, but to a vice president who was unfailingly constructive and humane. That vice president established a sub-culture that shielded his departments from the CEO’s more distasteful foibles.
Leaders sometimes object that the concept we describe isn’t equitable. “Why should I get dumped on from above and still try to build something better for those below me?” they say. “That’s not fair.”
They’re right. It’s not terribly fair.
But do we aspire to be leaders who treat our employees only as well as we are treated by our own supervisor? Do we seek only to perpetuate the shortcomings the system in which we are embedded? Or is our vision to create the best possible system with the resources and challenges that we have been handed?
This is a question that every leader, whether they realize it or not, is answering each and every day.