Managers who direct, monitor and adjust other people’s productivity are not leaders.
This myth began during the Industrial Revolution when workers in factories and on assembly lines were managed by overseers. The seeds of this myth were no doubt also planted during the Agrarian Age when the productivity of serfs and slaves was managed by lords and foremen on farms and plantations. Perhaps its roots even stretch back to biblical times when, out of self-defense, Moses divided the people of the Exodus into hierarchical groups with a middle person those people could go to for their needs rather than all of them coming directly to Moses.
This is the “Myth of Hierarchical Leadership” – the concept that organizations are best led top down and that leadership and decisions flow primarily in that direction. This Myth has proven to be completely untrue as we’ve moved through the computer, information, global communications and internet revolutions, but many people and organizations still cling to the Myth.
Old Habits are Hard to Break
The Myth is a difficult one to break primarily because it is a self-perpetuating model rooted in power, ego and control. For people in “management” positions who are all about control and personal ego stroking, the Myth is very much in their interest to keep alive, despite the fallacy of its application in reality.
Creating and perpetuating the Myth of Hierarchical Leadership in organizations does not create cultures of people who venture to think, act, manage and lead on their own. Just the opposite, the Myth serves no cultural purpose but to artificially over-inflate the egos of the supposed “management” and artificially demean and under-value the competencies and intelligence of the supposed “staff”. A Myth culture conditions people not to think, but to wait for direction from an all-knowing “management” and not make decisions on their own. It does not empower people; it drains power away from people or offers them little control or autonomy in the first place.
The reality is that the majority of people in organizations understand their functions and the processes in and around their functions far better than the “managers” to whom they report. People on the front lines see the action first-hand and are in the best position to decide real-time courses of action. Perhaps most importantly, people want and need to be empowered and autonomous in their decision-making to feel valuable in their jobs, satisfied in their careers and, thus, of most value to their organizations.
Because of the downsizing and attrition that has occurred in many organizations in the last few decades, the reality is that organizations have become so flat that many of them have almost nobody who isn’t a “manager” of their function. Yet, the mythical Hierarchical Leadership management model maintains a flimsy facade that considers employees as “staff” who must wait for “management” to tell them what to do.
The Need for an Evolved Model of Leadership
A resounding and consistent theme in studies of leadership conducted by universities, management consulting firms, corporations and the military proves that true leadership happens from all directions – bottom-up, outside-in, across divisional and organizational boundaries, as well as top down. One military leadership model calls it “leading from the edge”, acknowledging that the majority of leadership decisions are made in real-time on the front lines of engagement – “the edge”.
Management at the top of any organization may provide strategy, high-level goals, organizational structure and a framework for decision-making, but mature organizations understand that leadership and real-time decision-making happen best in the field and on the front lines. The majority of leadership decisions and actions happen where people meet the market, customers, partners, collaborators and competitors.
Mature organizations enable the power and control where it belongs … where the rubber hits the road.
Timely Non-Scientific Study on LinkedIn
Within the popular business networking site, LinkedIn, there is a group that formed called “Developing the Leader within You”. As of this writing, the group contains 2,913 people from all walks of organizational life. In August of 2011, a question was posed to the group by Richard Blakemore, one of the group’s members based in Australia. The question was, “If you could find a synonym for ‘leader’ what would that be?”
Over the next four months, 128 people responded to that question with individual words, phrases and paragraphs describing their views of leadership. We have captured those words and views in a document that sums up the result. That document can be found at the following link.
Synonyms for Leader – LinkedIn Summary Report
Within the summary report, you will find 69 words and several pages of directly-quoted prose that describe what we believe define an evolved model for leadership. The leadership characteristics named and described in this report break the centuries-old Myth of Hierarchical Leadership.
You will not find one word in this summary about “control”, “ego”, “hierarchy” or references to “management and staff”. Quite the contrary, the most popular and consistent concepts you will see within the posts of this group describe leadership qualities of vision, empowerment, humility, servant-hood, advocacy, enablement, stewardship, collaboration and inspiration.
Leadership in Our Time
Leadership in our age requires people who think and act not within antiquated models of hierarchical structure and control. Our time requires people at all levels of organizations to act with attitudes of purpose, visionary direction, enablement, shepherding, stewardship and, perhaps most importantly, humility – a confident knowledge that none of us individually has all the answers and trust that collectively we can always find them.
Organizations that understand and operate by this model of leadership will be those that attract the most talented people and will receive the most from those talents. Empowered people who operate within a culture of supported trust, inspiration and autonomy are people committed to the needs of the organization that provides them with that support. The result is that the people and the organization both operate at peak performance and consistently at their Essential Best.
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I’ve been formulating these thoughts in my mind for a while, this is the most truthful article on the subject of leadership, it frustrates me to see people in influential positions that don’t understand these truths..Although, that will change with my generation.
Peter,
I worked in global leadership strategy at Nortel Networks promoting consistency and best practices across the company, based on the great work that was already being done in the company. We realized that future leadership skills were not being demonstrated by our most senior level leaders – including the truths Dick writes about in this article. We realized that we needed these future leaders NOW if the company was to survive. Unfortunately, things didn’t change fast enough and Nortel died off… So keep in mind that you have a perspective that is needed now, people in influencial positions need to know new and innovative ways of leading (even if they act like they don’t), and you are creating the new way every day. Let us know how it’s going!
the tough part is the “supported trust, inspiration and autonomy” – Empowered teams/individuals/employees is a term that has been around for a long time … yet it still has not “grabbed hold” in the Corporate Culture. Trust is something that is earned over time … and making the time for that trust is hard in the busy corporate world, much less in the world of on-going “down sizing” (or the threath thereof) . I enjoyed the article … and agree with what today leaders need!
Excellent article Dick, I totally agree and with regards to the comments already stated, the need to engage everyone, without reservation, in building a trusting culture (both in work and in society) is our challenge in today’s tight economic pressure. How do we engage all employees in open and honest conversation, opening up mutual understanding of individual needs AND the collective ‘community’ needs. Often marginalised human beings, under pressure, cannot grasp that to create a value based, caring, thriving, trusted collaboration, each have to be truly abundant in what they bring to the table. We have sadly seen the growth of a selfish world at work, both in profit demands and oft restrictive litigation of employee rights. We need leaders who are followers AND/AND followers who value themselves as leaders of their own careers while being committed and responsible for the whole in conversation with those who ‘run’ the business.
I work in the corporate world, bringing everyone to the table for conversations to radically rebalance the I-AM within and ‘WE’-AM that each contributes as part of by the natural collective. The major challenge is for people to let go of their mistrust that there is a ‘them’ and ‘us’ and step into a fully conscious ‘we’. My core belief that all I truly am and all I am “being and doing” in a positive, all embracing, abundant and loving way has a good influence on all my relationships and inspires all collective outcomes which I contribute to – this is what I teach my clients, men and women, young and old. Applying this for leadership development will break the Myth of Hierarchical Leadership – however as Karen refers to at Nortel, some organisation are so entrenched it will take a tsunami of destruction to break them and they may not survive! I am driving forward a new special programme in the UK to shift the male mindset, in tough male sectors, to think and feel in new ways, that will embrace a healthy working practice with all diverse groups in a conscious collaborative manner. I will keep you posted!
Well done Dick, Karen and IAM… let’s shift leaders mindsets and open the flood gates to a healthy world. It will take time, but let’s set an intention to speed up that transformation by each being true to our own IAM!
Debbie, I’m delighted you enjoyed the article and the leadership characteristics from the LinkedIn survey. I am also glad you made that point about trust. Building and maintaining trust in a corporate environment is a crucial element of success, as it is in our personal lives.
Many people view trust as a nebulous concept … like good art, I know it what I see it. But our work with trust in organizations proves that it is actually comprised of eight definable elements that can be separately assessed, measured, managed and improved over time. As you said, that gives this essential component of success handles by which we can “grab hold” and proactively improve it.
We view trust as so important that we are packaging up a career trust tool to take it out of the ethereal category and make it a tangible, actionable asset that people can manage within the context of their careers.
Since you brought up the “trust” issue, would you like to be a “beta-tester” of the new tool when it’s ready?