One of the first points that we have been emphasizing is that the organization needs to appreciate the difference between management and leadership. Organizations are very good at developing management competencies and training their managers in these competencies. However, management competencies alone will not achieve the desired business objectives that are desired as a result of a change process. The appropriate leadership is needed as well. Hundreds of books and thousands of articles have been written on leadership. Many definitions have been offered. But the simplest way to characterize leadership as opposed to management is that leadership deals with behavior.
Leadership is the human side of management. It is the side that inspires and motivates or un-inspires and de-motivates. The behavior of a leader is the direct point of contact between the boss and the employee. This is where the rubber hits the road in the boss/employee relationship. Leadership behavior will breathe life into the new processes and business practices that have been created by the change process.
Therefore the desired leadership behaviors have to be identified and coached in order to create a focused and intentional collection of like-minded people that can act in new ways to achieve new business outcomes.
Leadership envisions future direction, communicates the direction, and motivates and engages employees toward a common purpose. Only new leadership behavior can bring about new cultural change. Louis Gerstner past CEO of IBM is quoted in his book throughout IBM “I came to see in my time at IBM, that culture isn’t just one aspect of the game – it is the game. In the end, an organization is nothing more than the collective capacity of its people to create value … management system can carry you for a while … but no enterprise will succeed over the long haul if those elements (culture) aren’t part of its DNA”. In other words demonstrated leadership behavior, what a manger says, how a manager says it, what a manager does and how a manager does it will change the culture of the organization.
This demonstrated behavior is picked up by subordinates and it is transferred from the manager to the employee. Through this transference process, new values, norms and whole informal human systems are created. The behaviors must be repeated over and over again.
But these behaviors are themselves initially rooted in a clear set of values. For example, trust and fairness have been shown to be two values if exhibited by managers and supported by organizational practices have the effect of increasing an employee’s “capacity” for handling pressures at work. These are also essential values needed for a responsive organization because responsiveness is directly proportionate an employee’s ability to make decisions on their own. In other words, the company “trusts” an employee to make a decision when a difficult situation arises and for which there may not be any written guidelines.
This is crucial in a business environment where companies are struggling to retain top performing employees, where competitive position can quickly be eroded by changing market conditions, technology innovation, changes in economic conditions and mergers and acquisitions. Organizations require agility to quickly create new strategies to respond to these external change pressures. According to some estimates organizational change efforts fail abut 75% of the time. Core values and consistent behavior by all managers and employees that reflect the core values will ultimately transform the organization.
This was best summarized by John McGuire from the Center of Creative Leadership when he said that “human nature is comprised of hearts and minds, art and science. Sustainable change in organizations requires both a meaningful understanding and creation from the heart (leadership as art) and the rational reasoning mind (management as science).” The creativity and willingness of the heart is often overlooked and is essential for transformation and change. We need to combine tools of organizational analysis with tools for developing desired leadership behaviors to achieve long lasting change.