Who’s Really Leading?

The entire time I was in manufacturing, nearly twenty years, the facility I worked in held a meeting each Tuesday afternoon that was often referred to as The Leadership Team Meeting. The plant manager led this meeting and each of the department managers participated, reviewing the metrics they were each responsible for tracking, discussing issues they were facing, and whether or not they were within budget to that point in the quarter. If one of those managers happened to be out of the plant, they would tap someone on their team to attend in their place…

Sound familiar? I expect it does since nearly every company I’ve interacted with in the years since holds similar meetings. But are those really leadership team meetings?

When Cindy and I had a conversation with Carly Fiorina a while back, she shared this with us regarding the difference between managing and leading, “Managers produce results within existing constraints and conditions. Leadership CHANGE or CHALLENGE existing constraints and conditions.” With that perspective in mind, coupled with what was reviewed in the Tuesday afternoon meeting each week, would you consider it a Leadership Team Meeting or a Management Team Meeting?

Having been one of those folks who was tapped to attend on occasion, all I ever saw was a group of folks who were working to produce results within existing constraints and conditions… Process improvement was typically something the engineers were tasked with, developing new customers fell on the shoulders of the outside sales team, and I just don’t recall any real push to change or challenge anything that was ever handed down from the corporate office. To me, this was absolutely a management team meeting…

Don’t miss my point here: I’m not suggesting that it was a bad thing or even an unnecessary thing; without managing each of the details that were covered in that weekly meeting - and managing them VERY effectively - hundreds of people’s livelihood would have been at stake. Managing productivity and profitability are extremely critical for any privately held business, but leading requires a different set of skills!

One of the first catchphrases I remember hearing John Maxwell say early in my career was that “Leadership is influence. Nothing more, nothing less.” While managing our processes and procedures are absolutely necessary, that’s often done from a perspective of positional authority where team members are held accountable for performing specific roles. When expectations aren’t met, consequences usually follow. Again, producing results within existing constraints and conditions… But not necessarily challenging or changing, or achieving those results through a level of influence beyond some level of fear of repercussions…

With all that in mind, how often have you seen someone in an individual contributor role, with no supervisory responsibility but is very skilled technically, who’s words carry significant weight with every single one of their peers - whether their words are positive or negative? I sure have! And when those words happen to push back against existing constraints or conditions, it can seem like the whole team has turned against the supervisor or manager! Whether we like it or not, folks like this are often leading the team that someone else is managing…

As we move forward here, we’re going to work through some things we can each do in our respective roles to earn genuine influence so we can lead our organizations just as effectively as we’ve had to manage them leading up to this point. Although this often requires a completely different set of skills, both can be applied simultaneously AND they can complement one another!