Leaders, Managers, and the Right Thing |

Management is doing things right.
Leadership is doing the right things.
Peter Drucker, Leading authority on organizations

Every organization’s leadership team has the continuing opportunity and challenge to:

organize the business, nonprofit, or agency for learning,
facilitate the aligned contributions of employees and volunteers, and
be a beacon of conviction, clarity, and confidence that guides progress toward a shared vision of success.

Unlike large organizations that have a formally defined ‘C-Suite’ of senior leaders (CEO, COO, CFO, CIO…..) most small and medium size organizations, have a leader (Executive Director, President, CEO) with a small team that usually includes department managers or directors who spend most of their time thinking about and doing ‘management,’ i.e. overseeing the effective execution of the work, doing things right. This team is usually called a ‘management team.’

The term, ‘management team,’ masks something very important to mission success. Job descriptions of managers usually focus on the constancy and urgency of daily operations. This reinforces the human habit to attend to what is most pressing but risks leaving more important, non-urgent things unattended.

Even when a strong leader has final authority on all or most issues, organizations with more than a handful of people need a team of people who continually do the right things that build and sustain organizational health. The LEADER must fully empower these managers to help discharge the leadership responsibility to do the ‘right things.’

Here are four day-to-day actions that are always RIGHT for leaders to do.

BUILD AND SUSTAIN ORGANIZATIONAL HEALTH, EVERY DAY!!!

Admit Mistakes – Be an impeccable model for the constructive behavior you expect and need from all the employees and volunteers that you depend upon to move the mission forward. One of the most important behaviors a leader can demonstrate is to promptly and directly admit mistakes: “I screwed that up.” A healthy environment depends upon the capacity to openly admit and discuss mistakes in order to learn. Leaders must go first.
Open the Feedback Channels – Let people at every level know you value their ideas, questions, and concerns. Feedback needs to flow freely in all directions. Therefore, it is critical that leaders demonstrate their willingness to receive and sincerely consider feedback and criticism. A healthy organization is a psychologically safe place where people believe that speaking up (especially to someone with authority) will not lead to negative consequences.
Send a ‘Steady Signal’ – Over-communicate to all the employees and volunteers the UNIFYING NARRATIVE that defines the organization: the mission (WHY we exist); the culture and values (WHO we are and HOW we do things); the vision (WHERE we are going together); and the rallying cry (WHAT objective(s) we are currently focused on). This signal is the ‘heartbeat’ that delivers a flow of meaning through the body of a healthy, aligned organization. PURPOSE…IDENTITY…DESTINATION…FOCUS.
Use Key Decisions to Confirm Guiding Values and Principles – At the core of a healthy organization culture are a set of values and principles that provide the standards for the work and treatment of others. Key decisions will be visible to your internal and external stakeholders. This makes each key decision a golden opportunity to ‘walk the talk’, demonstrating integrity, maintaining credibility, and earning trust.

A cohesive leadership team that shares the daily responsibility to do the right things becomes a lighthouse beacon that guides everyone forward to healthy, successful future.

Practice Tip #16

It is easy to become complacent in a calm operational environment when the waves of change or crisis are small. If you are blessed with calm seas, use this opportunity to bring your leadership team together. Stress-test your unifying narrative. Is each member of your leadership team aligned? Confirm each element of your steady signal message that will continue to clarify the path forward and help the organization remain aligned to navigate any challenges that lie ahead. MISSION, CULTURE, VISION, FOCUS. Make sure each leader knows how to show others the way.

Words of Wisdom

Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important.
Stephen Covey Principle-Centered Leadership

Organizations have to be able to redefine themselves at a faster and faster pace.
Ray Kurzweil Director of Engineering, Google

I believe that the capacity any organisation needs is for leadership to appear anywhere it is needed when it is needed.
Margaret Wheatley Leadership and the New Science