Managing Leadership^®

There’s a lot of anxiety in the air. Everything from targets – how to establish and meet them – to self-identity – to manage or lead? – has managers looking over their shoulders, anxiously checking to see if there is anyone there following, complying, or just carping. Let’s take a look at some recent press items that cover some of this ground.

What managers really ought to be doing. Business Week periodically summarizes select Harvard Business Online articles. These are generally what you might expect from such an institution. However, when the iconoclast Henry Mintzberg is featured, it is usually worth a read.

Mintzberg achieved his initial visibility by actually studying what managers really do on a daily basis, and discovering that most of what is written about that, and what managers themselves think about it, is almost all wrong. Take a look at this piece to see some of his current thinking, based, again, on direct observation.

What managers worry about. A recent child development study has attracted attention for discovering distinct differences in the way males and females are influenced by past events in their future planning. Guess what? Women are more cognizant of these when considering alternatives for further action.

The specific results suggest that men are more optimistic and bold about what the future holds – or more heedless of what the past teaches us to expect. Women, on the other hand, tend to bear such factors carefully into their calculations. What does this mean? It is certainly intriguing, and bears further study.

What managers do wrong. This next item, entitled The 7 Fatal Flaws of Performance Measurement, is from the CPA Journal, published by the New York State Society of CPAs. The entire piece is worth careful attention. Pay particular attention to the following:

• Fatal Flaw 4: Misunderstanding Psychology
• Fatal Flaw 5: Confusing the Voice of the Customer with the Voice of the Process
• Fatal Flaw 7: Misunderstanding the Real Role of Measurements.

Finally, consider this quote, from the concluding paragraph:

Management must gather and analyze information that will help employees become better contributors to the firm’s purpose. In too many organizations just the reverse happens: Measures define what is meaningful instead of letting the work itself define the measures.”

At the bottom of a lot of management errors lies misconceived objectives. Once that mistake is made, virtually everything else flowing therefrom is also a mistake. The scope of the unfortunate consequences just grows, along with the bafflement about how that could be.

Take the time to frame the issues correctly. Then take more time, subjecting your assessments to as much internal and external scrutiny as circumstances will allow. Then, even as you proceed, keep alert for evidence coming in that may suggest you still have it wrong.

That’s what managers do.

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Today’s tip: Yesterday, Krishna Kumar, author of Thought Clusters, posted a considered and insightful piece entitled Individual vs. Team Productivity, addressing how the two must work together to achieve optimal productivity – and, indeed, to avoid counterproductive bottlenecks.

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