Manager/Leaders in the Hierarchy

“Curmudge, if you haven’t already forgotten, please tell me where we left of in our last discussion. It had something to do with shaking hands with Hillary.”

“You may have to settle for Mrs. Obama, Jaded Julie. We were discussing a manager’s possession of savvy and aura, but of greatest importance is the manager’s unspoken authority and power. We know that in the ubiquitous hierarchy someone—the manager—has to see that the merry-go-round goes around. To see that lab analyses are performed, surgeries are scheduled, and bills are sent out.”

“I don’t know much about ubiquitous, but I do know that hierarchies are everywhere.”

“Leavitt tells us that people will complete about 90% of a manager’s request just because she is the boss. But that last 10% is essential if the organization wants to go from good to great. That’s where leadership is needed. Management’s authority is necessary but it’s not sufficient. As Bob Nelson says (quoted by Hunter), ‘You get the best effort from others not by lighting a fire beneath them, but by building a fire within them.’ Combustion in the abdomen is best ignited by a leader who communicates to her followers that she is competent, confident, and has their best interests at heart. The ‘best interests’ part is, as we know, servant leadership.”

“Come out with it, Curmudge! ‘Fire in the belly’, not ‘combustion in the abdomen’. That’s a euphemism. (Euphemism! Did I say that?) So, Old Guy, is there something about today’s society that makes it essential that our hierarchies have manager/leaders rather than pure managers? Henry Ford just had managers, and he did pretty well.”

“We get some hints from Leavitt, and they seem to make sense. He said that in our volatile, interconnected world organizations require some leader-like creativity from all levels. Our top executives ‘recognize that their managers are people, not empty suits… who have the positive qualities of leadership.’ Leavitt also notes that today’s managers don’t work just in their own units. They need to be able to interact with all sorts of people and to be able to persuade folks horizontally, where they don’t have authority, and diagonally in the organization.”

“Thanks, Curmudge. You made a pretty good case for manager/leaders. Of course, you had some expert help. Now if I could just inject some of that ‘fire in the belly’ stuff into my sedentary husband. Any ideas?”

“It shouldn’t be too hard, Julie. When you make supper tonight, just add lots of habanero chili peppers. Their capsaicinoid content is really high.”

“If you say so, Chemist.”

Affinity’s Kaizen Curmudgeon