Language can be a subtle trap. In business we’re accustomed to calling leaders “managers”. The not-so-obvious implication is the people they manage are nothing more than inert widgets, to be tweaked an manipulated for optimum results, more or less like items in a stockroom or entries in a ledger.
Reducing employees to replaceable commodities also devalues the people who are supposed to lead them. If employees are interchangeable cogs in the machine of business, then so are the wheels that drive them. The result is horrendous under-performance in most organizations.
Gallup recently issued a report, State of the American Manager, that confirms what used to be conventional wisdom: leaders are born, not made. The nineteenth century mechanistic view of employees that came to dominate the American business culture comes with a heavy cost.
Gallup found only 35% of US managers are engaged in their workplace. With the other 65% fumbling their way along, American business pays a huge premium to assume that anyone with success in a non-leadership position, sufficient tenure or good connections will automatically be a good leader. Some of the costs appear in under performance and high turnover. However there are others as well. This summary of the report says Gallup estimates the aggregate costs of unengaged leadership to be somewhere between $319 to $398 billion annually.
What qualities should we be looking for in leaders at all levels in our organizations?
Strength as a motivator, assertiveness, accountability, and in making and maintaining relationships as well as decision making are common traits of “high talent” leaders.
Strong leadership appears to be more a function of character rather than a skill acquired on the job or in the classroom.