Blinkers Are Not Optional (eBook)

The Leaders We Have Vs. the Leadership We Need

David Milstone Ed. D (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2021 | 1. Auflage
296 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-0983-9808-8 (ISBN)

Infos

A great deal of public attention has recently focused on the actions of people in leadership positions. Unfortunately, much of this attention has spotlighted negative leadership. The public trust in politicians is at near historic lows. Is it any wonder that the more often people hear about local, national, and global news, the less they trust their leaders? In so many ways, at a time when the need for effective leadership has grown, effective leadership has deteriorated and needs to be fixed. Too often we are finding that the leaders we have do not possess or demonstrate traits and skills that we need them to have. As a result, until we change our expectations and behaviors in this regard, we will continue to hire and elect individuals to leadership positions who are quite like what we have now-largely ineffective. This book argues for a different path for the leaders of tomorrow. It looks at the state of leaders in this country and around the world, replaces old leadership questions with new ones, and offers a new paradigm from which to search for and find the leadership we need for the future.

Textauszug

CHAPTER I

The Current State of Leadership

As the data demonstrates, far too many of today’s leaders are ineffective, ill-suited for their positions, and in many cases, do harm to their employees, teammates, and organizations. Leadership is free falling, but it does not have to be this way.

Who among us has not heard the mantra, “people leave managers, not companies,” which has become the rallying cry behind the need to improve conditions in organizations nearly everywhere? Until recently, businesses believed that employee satisfaction and retention hinged on salaries, but according to Payscale, only 25 percent of employees leave their job because they want more money.6 While salary, job title, work hours, and vacation days are certainly important to most of us, the data demonstrates what we have long believed - that most of the workers who voluntarily leave their jobs do so because of their bosses—their leaders.

A Gallup study conducted in October 2013 indicated that “one in two employees had left their job to get away from their manager at some point in their career.”7 DDI, a global leadership consulting organization, reaffirmed in their 2019 Frontline Leader Project that “people leave managers.” Their study showed that 57 percent of the employees left, and an additional 32 percent considered leaving their jobs because of their manager. Even more disturbing, 14 percent had left multiple jobs for this reason.8

We know that people leave jobs for a wide variety of reasons:

• Looking for growth opportunities or jobs at other organizations,
• Wanting to try a different vocation or field of interest,
• Spouse gets a promotion in a different geographical area,
• Illness or retirement.

Even with all these reasons considered, it is critical to understand that good workers leave jobs and organizations most often and primarily due to bad bosses.

Based on our collective experiences, we know that effective leaders find ways to support the growth and development of their employees. As previously stated, however, we also know that ineffective leaders often cause good employees to quit their jobs. With this knowledge, I sought to supplement the data produced by Gallup and the Pew Research Center with a personal experiment. I wanted to learn the percentage of employees in my networks who found their past supervisors/leaders to be effective. To that end, I conducted a Facebook/LinkedIn poll in March 2021.9 I asked respondents to consider and share whether their past supervisors/leaders had been 1) excellent/good, 2) fair/between-good-and-not-good, or 3) not-good/poor. The responses were eye-opening.

In total, the survey respondents considered a total of 1,412 supervisors/leaders and rated only 37 percent of them as “excellent/good.” Conversely, 63 percent of respondents assessed their supervisors to be less than “good.” Several respondents indicated that they were uncomfortable sharing online ratings about their past leaders due to concerns that their supervisors might somehow identify their posts and retaliate against them, which is telling. A few respondents also communicated off-line to indicate that they believed none of their past supervisors were “excellent or good.” Whether these numbers match your experiences or not, I would be willing to bet that you find them discouraging and unacceptable, as do I.

It is important to note that the results of the Facebook/LinkedIn survey cannot be generalized to all supervisors, given the small sample size. These responses certainly were in line, however, with studies done by national agencies such as Gallup and Pew and suggest that most leaders are not effective, and some even toxic, which as you know, is the primary reason that good employees leave their jobs.

Three clarifying statements are needed before we continue. First, while all supervisors are leaders, not all leaders are supervisors. A great majority of leaders do supervise others in a formal, organizationally sanctioned sense. They hire their staff, train them, and formally evaluate their efforts. Some other leaders are responsible for a program or project that involves others, or work with volunteers, but are not considered formal supervisors. They may carry the title of “advisor,” but certainly need to take a leadership role.

Second, some organizational members demonstrate leadership from more of an informal position. You likely have heard of “leading from the middle” in which employees gain a great deal of influence and can take on a leadership role as a situation warrants it. An example from professional sports would be a pitcher on a Major League Baseball team who takes it upon himself, during a team slump, to offer inspiration or strategy based on his years of experience or simply because he is trusted. Leaders from the middle can also come from grassroots efforts, exemplified by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a congresswoman currently representing New York. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez has helped raise a deep, grassroots effort, along with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, pertaining to a Green New Deal that focuses on climate action. All leaders can have a large amount of influence on the productivity, growth, development, and success of their organizations in virtually all professional fields. The formal leaders’ roles, however, differ from those of the informal leaders, so to help simplify a very complex topic, this book looks primarily at positional leadership, which gives an individual their leadership status by the nature of their position.

The third clarification pertains to the role of “leader” versus the role of “manager.” In this case, all leaders are managers, but not all managers are leaders. The roles of each are unique, and in practice most formal/positional leaders have a job description that includes management functions as well as leadership functions. Management functions pertain to the daily administrative operations such as budgets, hiring, planning, running staff meetings, and so on, and leadership functions pertain to providing vision, inspiring possibilities, creating an environment conducive to effecting change, helping to tap the motivations of employees, and so on. Can you imagine a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) who focuses only on maintaining the status quo or one who creates vision without a plan on how to achieve it? Probably not, because both are necessary. Management functions are a separate and important component of organizational effectiveness, as are leadership functions. Both management and leadership are necessary for the growth and development of an organization or of a smaller entity, such as an organizational subunit, like a committee, team, or department. The often-asked question of which is more important - management skills or leadership skills - is not a fair one. It depends on the result you desire, right? In terms of this book and developing more effective leaders, our answer needs to be “both.”

As we delve into the factors that surround the current status of leadership, we should be aware that there is no lack of available educational materials about leadership. In fact, there is a wealth of information available to help leaders develop their skills. A search on Amazon.com in January 2021 indicated that there were more than 70,000 books currently for sale which focus on the topic of leadership.10 Some books focus on the “how-to” methods of increasing leadership effectiveness. Others target the crucible moments in which ordinary people were faced with extraordinary challenges. A smaller number of books discuss the theories that explain leadership and the connection between leadership and organizational success.

With all the literature available to leaders, my survey data begs the question—why are so few leaders and supervisors deemed “excellent/good” and what can be done, individually and collectively, to increase the percentage who achieve success?

Before looking directly at some reasons that so many leaders are ineffective, I’d like to expand on a topic from the introduction and share a personal experience that has helped me to classify leaders into three categories and focus on why effective leadership matters.

Highway Leadership

While driving down the highway on a colorful fall day, I observed a vehicle move from the middle lane to the right lane without using a turn signal. It may have been a sign of my age, but under my breath, I sarcastically said, “Oh, I must have forgotten that Mercedes drivers are exempt from needing to use blinkers.” A short while later, a different vehicle entered traffic from the right side on-ramp and flew past the yield sign without slowing down at all – in fact, I believe they sped up as they merged into the highway traffic. Not too much later, I saw another car in the left lane tailgating the car in front of it. What does the Registry of Motor Vehicles say about the space between cars?11 I believe they use a three-second rule that requires enough space between cars to count to “three one-thousand,” or something like that, right? This one was not even close – or, well, you know what I mean. For people who drive on a regular basis, seeing these traffic violations is nothing new. In...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 8.10.2021
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Wirtschaft ► Betriebswirtschaft / Management ► Unternehmensführung / Management
• ISBN-10: 1-0983-9808-4 / 1098398084
• ISBN-13: 978-1-0983-9808-8 / 9781098398088