As I read about world events, I find myself asking a reoccurring question, “Why do we have so many managers, but not enough leaders?” In particularly, leaders who behave like leaders and are not just charismatic business people. The world needs to not only create more leaders, but leaders who consistently behave like leaders and are not just in positions of leadership. Here’s why:
The world has moved on. Peter Drucker, renowned management consultant and author whose writings hugely contributed to modern business management, identified in the 1990s that the world was in a “shift to a knowledge society.” Drucker’s statement shows that we are no longer reliant on tangible results, but intangible results, information.
Previous generations responded well to strong management techniques and close monitoring of activities (or micro-management – which I strongly dislike by the way); this was because we were in an era based on tangible products. For example, on a factory production line, one worker = three product components per hour. Highly measurable and if production slipped, it was easy to discipline that person so they improve, or replace that person with another. People were just another cog in the machine where tangible management techniques were used to deal with tangible results.
Things are different now. We are in an era of information where people bring intangible skills to a company, which are harder to measure and track. For example, within the Civil Engineering industry, a person is often hired for their ability to deal with high pressured situations, for having a high attention to detail, a good engineering background, for having a strong team approach, for being creative or for being one who can lead a project. How do you measure this? How do you measured one’s ability to lead? How to measure one’s ability for being able to deal with a high pressured situation? Can we set metrics like: per day you will make four people feel committed to the project or you must be in one high pressured situation per day and deal with it successfully? No, because intangible results cannot be measured in the same way as tangible results. What can be tracked however, is results and success.
This is why the current generations, who make up the majority of our workforce, do not like to be managed. Our current and future workforce bring intangible assets to our teams and companies which cannot be managed. They need to be led.
They need to be shown the way. Not told the way.
They need to be guided and coached. Not restricted and reprimanded.
They need to be treated with respect and freedom. Not belittled and micromanaged.
Hamza Kahn, speaking at TedxRyersonU in 2017, said that “You manage things. You lead people.”
More and more in the news today I see that that focus of societal developments are to train and create more managers. However, I believe that this will leave our future lacking in numbers of more experienced future leaders. Now before people complain about how important managers are, I am not saying managers are not important. Managers, like many other roles, have a part to play. What I am saying however, is that our focus should be to train and provide experience to more people is regards to developing leadership behaviours. This will leave society in a better position in the future as we will have people who behave like leaders, but are from a more diverse range of backgrounds, genders, races, life experiences, educations, beliefs, identities and more. That is critical to a successful and progressive future.
So what can you do? Make the decision today to no loner behave like a manager. Decide today that you will behave like a leader and transform your own life and the life of others. Take your personal development to the next level, increase your influence and grow as a leader.
Thanks for reading, JT.
