Send to KindleLeadership – Good or Bad, It’s Still Leading
I’ve had an interesting exchange lately on someone else’s blog about whether junior managers should even attempt to practice leadership. 
The authors seem to feel that managers should stick to management functions and not venture into the realm of actual leadership. Apparently they are upset about some managers trying to make improvements and actually act like leaders.
This isn’t just an issue of semantics. To remove the concept of leadership from a manager’s position is unconscionable. It’s also impossible. Anyone who is charged with managing other people is in a leadership position. They certainly may not be any good at it, but the fact remains they provide leadership. More on that concept in a minute.
I’ve discussed levels of leadership before (see http://www.planleadexcel.com/archives/1468 ). It’s the lowest level that seems to be where all the controversy is so I’ll concentrate there. This is the level of supervisors and junior managers who have the primary responsibility of managing a function. They were probably promoted because of some expertise or ability that was recognized by someone above them with the authority to promote.
There is a critical reality to these types of positions. Supervisors and managers have more face-to-face, day-to-day contact with the rest of their workers than any other person in the company. Though their primary responsibility is to manage, they affect the working lives of those they supervise. If they treat those people badly, they will get bad results. If they understand how to recognize motivations, if they have a vision for their own piece of the operation, if they know how to set realistic goals, if they have even the most basic knowledge of leading people, they will be much more effective because leading people, is a vital part of what they do.
When you see leadership in this way, it becomes apparent that anyone in a supervisor or manager position leads, whether they want to or not. To clarify we need to add a modifier; good or bad. Often, leadership is assumed to be good leadership. Bad leadership is considered to not be leadership. That’s wrong. Bad leaders are still leaders. When workers are promoted to supervisory and management positions with no thought to their leadership development, the result is often considered to be an absence of leadership when in fact it is bad leadership.
To illustrate, let’s visit Jack and Jill. Both are experts in their areas and are newly promoted managers. Jack understands the technical part of the job and is diligent about accomplishing each task to the letter. He stays in his office most of the time managing the paperwork. He’s a supervisor now so working on the floor is beneath him. Jack is frustrated because his section’s production is down and he can’t figure out why.
Jill has made an effort to get to know her workers which has allowed her to arrange their schedules for maximum efficiency. She told everyone about her vision to make this section the envy of the rest of the company and she worked with her people to set goals. She even takes time to get out on the floor and work with her people when things get really busy. The result has been a sharp increase in productivity.
Jack and Jill are fictional, but the situations are not. I’ve observed them too many times. It’s often said that Jack is not providing leadership. In fact he is; it’s just bad leadership. For a much more in-depth look at this concept, read Bad Leadership by Barbara Kellerman.
There are multiple aspects to the concept of leadership but at its core, leadership is always about people. So instead of insisting that supervisors and managers shouldn’t think they are leaders, consider how much more successful they, and the whole company could be if they learned to be leaders.
