Introduction

In developing my consulting businesses, I identify leadership as important.  However, effective control over what I would call the ‘leadership-management paradigm’ is more important. 

Personally, I would not approach a client’s problems right away as being centered on his or her leadership inadequacies, even if that were a big part of my SWOT analysis.  First, the leader (say the business owner or CEO) might not be open to self-reflection, at least initially.  Secondly, by asking both the leader and her or his managers, as well as her or his staff, to share what they believe an ‘ideal state’ would look like in comparison to the current state, the key leverages the leader has responsibility and control over might best be revealed to everyone.  It’s important to conduct such surveying and brainstorming in a manner that still supports the position of the leader, but still exposes any hard truths he or she may not be aware of.

A leader without proper management training in basic areas of operations and finance is likely to create more problems than solutions.  However, if the leader’s one weak area is in human capital development and he or she hires and/or contracts personnel which do not, or worse, cannot, effectively implement an otherwise sound strategy, then the deficiency is, yes, almost entirely the leader’s fault.  At the same time, a leader who is not necessarily a wizard in all areas of business issues can hire managers with strong competencies in areas where the leader may not be especially strong.

I believe the solution to more ghettoized, dichotomous traditional interpretations of the leadership-management paradigm is to have a simple but elegant management innovation (see “Management Innovation” section) stance—that is to say, agile, having the capacity to improvise, adapt and overcome successfully in the face of planned and unplanned change—at both leadership and organization-wide levels.  To have a management innovation capacity, is to be sustainability competitive, and relevant via new systems and processes like open innovation and Triple Bottom Line strategies.

SPS reflections on leadership and management

My focus is in basic innovation management and communications (MarCom) principles.  However, this paper will cover broader principles addressing the leadership-management paradigm, but those can include innovation management and communications issues.

While not a classic executive, I believe I can share valuable information and support strategic initiatives on the behalf of other organizations.  Indeed, I have many years of advising in various capacities. 

I think I do have some intuition as to what is and is not profound change.  Many organizations are seeking such positive and ethical change (innovation) that supports their elementary relevance in today’s hyper-competitive economy. Significant for myself is being useful in helping other leaders qualify innovations as ‘positive’ and ‘ethical’ as part of supporting classic sustainable value performance, but with new Triple Bottom Line mental and organizational frames.  I believe in innovation management.

I would relish the resources to expand my particular leadership areas.  I would be very interested in personally enrolling in some of the exclusive brand private school executive leadership programs that are available.  Since those are prohibitively expensive right now, I am continuing to develop through the MBA program and through my consulting businesses, expanding my personal database on leadership and other organizational issues.

Managing the Leadership-Management Paradigm

Of course, leadership, or the act of influencing and designing strategies, is crucial in identifying, developing, and executing organizational requirements.  As stated, leadership can contrast with management, or the act of drawing together various resources (especially human capital) to accomplish objectives and tactics. Yet to imagine a hierarchal organizational framework where leadership is separate and merely authoritarian over management issues is an unwise perspective.  Certainly such organizations exist, but even modern militaries encourage innovation and initiative among managers and, to some degree, frontline personnel.

I would describe the leadership and management problem as being one of segregation.  To segregate leadership from management is to segregate the mind from the body.  That is not to say managers are without minds or that all leaders are isolated from the organizational body.  Leaders must manage well, and managers ought to have at least a basic leadership capacity.  There is a living, systemic relationship internally, and certainly one externally with various stakeholders.  Without becoming immersed in minutiae, the ideal leader will be able to visualize all organizational requirements and respond with appropriate strategies.  The ideal manager will have the capacity to execute those strategies.  However, the ideal manager should be on their way to being an ideal leader possessing generally ideal leader capabilities, and more importantly ones specific to a given organization.  Similarly, the leader should be on their way to their next successful opportunity and preparing managers to move into that leader’s current role.  Ideally, the level of cooperation, communication, and mutual aid services should be high.

A basic problem set is when organizations are confronted with micro and macro environmental changes for which they had no existing strategic response systems in place.  Counter initiatives are required.  This is where leadership is crucial. The leader must not panic.  It is important that staff and stakeholders see an organization’s leadership as being capable in crisis, if any given crisis (and there are many crisis candidates today).  That perspective must extend beyond the formation and dissemination of mere words.

A classic leadership technique is to develop goals that are meant to fulfill a general or subset strategy.  A strategic plan, marketing plans and programs, or new product lines, or business units can be complex undertakings.  In ideal organizations, both leaders, managers, and in many cases today, frontline staff, all participate in developing strategies.  Certainly all organization levels need to be prepared for a new strategy or strategy innovation through strong capabilities development.  Provided the organization is ready for change or for the new initiative, the ideal leadership environment can support the execution of a strategy by inviting managers and their staff to be successful in meeting a goal and defining for themselves how those goals are best met.

Everest and SMART(ER) goals can aid in articulating the personal capacities necessary in approaching a goal; and then defining the goal or goals (Whetten and Cameron, 2006).  The two tools need not be separated.

Everest Goals include the following traits:

•          Capture commitment

•          Requirement of effort and passion

•          Requirement of a significant ethic

•          Motivate learning and wisdom

•          Enhance positive human relationships

•          Lead beyond probabilities into possibilities

SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic/Relevant and Tangible/Time dependent.

Another area where the contrasts between leaders, managers, and staff can be critical are in terms of conflicts.  Without conflict resolution tools and awareness, productivity can drop and otherwise sound projects can fail to produce positive results.  My library includes resources like Patrick Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions of a Team (2002).   Lencioni’s basic premise is that conflict resolution and otherwise intangible team dynamics are indeed determinants in value creation.  While not entirely, I would say the leadership-management paradigm can significantly, balance between innovation successes and failures based on the following capacities when facing Lencioni’s five dysfunctions common in unproductive team dynamics.

The leader must possess a level of awareness to seek out identifiers and solutions similar to Lencioni’s.  Then, the leader must be willing to empower managers and frontline staff with tools for better understanding and mitigating conflict.  One could easily apply these rules to various leadership and management environments, especially regarding politics and public policy programming.  This is the human dimension of management, and now classic quantitative tools like project management can further support the potential for innovative value creation.  These are merely samples of ways in which the leadership-management paradigm can be successfully traversed.

Management Innovation

According to London Business School professor Gary Hamel, “A management innovation can be defined as a marked departure from traditional management principles, processes, and practices or a departure from customary organizational forms that significantly alters the way the work of management is performed. Put simply, management innovation changes how managers do what they do” (HBR, 2006).  In terms of other lessons learned, management innovation seems to serve well as a platform to identify and deploy tools that allow leaders help managers be agile, improvise, adapt and overcome in planned and unplanned situations.

Hamel lays out these basic management innovation principles:

• Commitment to a big management problem
• Novel principles that illuminate new approaches
• A deconstruction of management orthodoxies
• Analogies from atypical organizations that redefine what’s possible

With a management innovation mindset, leaders and managers are in a better position to take care of business in an increasingly complex world. Conclusion

I believe Hamel’s thesis supports positive innovation in terms of general management capacity development.  Hamel and other innovation researchers warrant further investigation.

Grant Millin is CEO of Sun Project Systems and Innovograph.           

References

Hamel, Gary.  (2006).  The Why, What and How of Management Innovation.  Harvard Business Review, February.  pp72-84

Lencioni, Patrick. (2002) “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.” San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Whetten, D. & Cameron, K. (2007).  Developing management skills, 7^th Ed.  Rutherford, NJ:  Prentice Hall.