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An article titled
“The New Psychology of Leadership,” in the August/September
2007 magazine Scientific American Mind, caught my
eye. It presents
current research into what it takes to be an effective leader
(the article can be read at www.sciammind.com.) I’ve been
intrigued for a long time by what makes truly effective
leaders (managers or supervisors) as good as they are, and I
think the authors’ arguments shed some light on the
issue.
According to the
article’s three authors, to be a truly effective leader you
must lead, not from the front and certainly not from the rear,
but from the middle. What this means is
that people are motivated when their leader takes the time to
learn the group’s beliefs and values and is able to show how
their actions support the mission and goals of the
enterprise.
It seems to me that
this begins with the manager who spends time getting to know
what the members of the work group feel is most important
about the work they do. This involves
active listening – listening not just to what people
say, but to the meaning behind their words, and then
summarizing for them what you heard in order to make sure you
heard correctly.
The second important
component of effective leadership on the job is showing the
employee that what he feels is most important in his work
contributes to the company’s mission and goals. That is, that his or
her work has meaning.
Merely Knowing The Job Is Not
Enough
Broadly put, on the
job most people have two sets of needs. The first set is
practical and consists of three specific needs: first, employees need
to know what to do – that is, they need to know what
the company expects them to do; second, they need to know
how to improve – that is, they need timely and
constructive feedback about what they have done so that they
can correct mistakes and improve performance; third, they need
recognition for what they have done – that is, they
need to know that their efforts are noticed and
appreciated.
The second set of
needs has less to do with how and everything to do with
why. Once
the day-to-day needs are met, employees want to know to what
end their efforts are being directed. Although it is not
always articulated, employees want to know why they are
doing the day-to-day things, because people want to feel that
what they do at work has meaning.
The Need For Meaning At
Work
It’s natural, since
we spend so much of our time on the job, that we want the work
that we do to be meaningful.
Meaningful work is
more obvious in some jobs than in others. Physicians and air
traffic controllers, for example, are well aware of the
meaningfulness of their work. The challenge for
effective managers is to help all their employees see
that each job, regardless of its specific duties, has value to
the company and ultimately to its customers.
The solution, the
authors of the study suggest, is for leaders to spend time
with their people getting to know what they think is important
about the work that they do. Most employee’s values
will likely be more or less in line with the company’s mission
and goals.
Managers should emphasize this similarity by talking with the
group and one-on-one with its individual members about how the
group’s values mesh with the company’s mission and goals. People don’t always
know how their work contributes to the company’s success. It is the leader’s job
to help them see the connection between their efforts and how
the company defines its goals and how it wants to achieve
them. Seeing
one’s work as meaningful comes from knowing that it is
important work, necessary to the success of the
enterprise.
Warning: Without Genuine
Concern This Is All Worthless
I shamelessly cribbed
the above warning from a book titled, The Passion of
Command: The Moral Imperative of Leadership by Colonel
B.P. McCoy, USMC.
Colonel McCoy commanded the 3rd Battalion,
4th Marine Regiment through two combat tours in
Iraq. In his
book, which begins with one full page devoted to the above
warning, he describes the principles of command for military
leaders in close combat. While business leaders
don’t face combat situations (although it sometimes feels like
it), McCoy’s suggestions mirror closely the ideas in the
Scientific American Mind article.
One of McCoy’s main
principles is that it is vitally important for the combat
leader to get to know the individuals who report to him and to
help them see that they share the same values and that their
goals are defined in the same way.
Cautionary Note
It is in these
conversations, that McCoy’s warning is relevant. Most individuals have
a finely tuned “BS” indicator that enables them to detect
insincerity in a heartbeat. Thus, it is vitally
important that the effort to connect with the people who
report to you comes from a genuine interest in them. Faking interest will
backfire, undercutting your credibility.
Leading
from the middle is a bedrock principle of effective leadership
because it directly addresses that which is most important to
the people being led. This principle is
deceptively simple, but doing it requires patience, empathy,
and consistent effort. Finding the time for
this effort, all the while putting out the daily brushfires
and handling the crises, will always be a challenge, but the
effort, made over time, will pay handsome dividends in terms
of enhanced motivation, teamwork, and productivity.
Remember, People are not your most
important asset!
The RIGHT People are!
To hire the best, test!
To reveal management potential, test!
To diagnose
problem behavior, test!
Best regards,
Kurt G. Helm, Ph.D.
Phone Toll Free
800-886-4356
Email: khelm@helmtest.com
Website: http://www.helmtest.com/
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