Are you a Manager or a Leader?

Leaders exist at every level of an organisation, whereas Managers are hierarchical pinnacles. By its nature, the role of a Manager is that of control, unless that manager is a Leader. There is nothing wrong with being a Manager as long as it is where you wish to be.

So which one am I (one might ask)? In order to better portray this, I'll use a real example, that I observed yesterday while shopping for clothes. I asked one of the 2 charming shop assistants why he seemed rather low-key. He told me this short story. 

He said that the other shop assistant who is his manager (Store Manager) hired him, some weeks ago, as he was recommended by her husband. He was doing very well from the outset, so the creative Store Manager moved against convention and decided to pool the Store Sales and effectively share her commission with him, while he ramped-up his sales. It created an amazing harmonious, effective, positive, pleasant and rewarding environment for both; a great place to work he added. That lasted about 3 weeks.

Then, the morning of my visit, the pair received a call from the Store Manager's supervisor who asked them to promptly stop that practise. "You are meant to be competing"........... 

The shop assistant is totally disincentivised and is now wondering if this organisation is aligned with his value systems or whether he will just be there and just collect the salary.

Hierarchically, the Supervisor was "enforcing" the organisational edict of how people participate in their internal commission scheme. The Store Manager was incentivising her staff.

The point is that as managers we often forget the purpose of the process, in this case the commission process. Obviously it is, to incentivise the team and individuals specifically, to achieve better organisational results. We seem to fail to realise that the best results are achieved through effective and happy teams rather than through dogma. As a manager this individual was using his position to enforce company policy. As a Leader, he failed, as this achieved the opposite outcome to the intent of the policy/process.

So the answer to the question "Am I a Leader or a Manager?", seems straight forward to me. Am I an enforcer that utilises my position to control outcomes, or am I unleashing that Leader quality within each individual in my team to achieve results that eclipse my industry competitors?

In our definition, Leaders are those that create Leaders and Leadership starts with one owning the responsibility of taking a Lead in their own life! Whether you know it or not, you are a Leader! Leaders exist in all walks of life. They are mothers, CEOs, volunteers, spiritualists, care-givers, receptionists, and the list goes on. However not all these role players are Leaders.

http://www.aldogrech.com

Who's Your Boss?

not relevant but interesting

As a leader, this is a key question to keep in mind.

It is my observation and opinion over the many years that I led businesses, that there are 2 types of businesses, those that focus on the customer and those that focus on the shareholder. Now many will argue that these are not mutually exclusive, and maybe so. However. I believe that in most cases that I have observed, this is a valid statement.i believe that there is only one Organisation that is effective and meets the test of time and that is the Organisation that focuses on the customer. I also happen to believe that the Organisation that focuses primarily on its customer is better serving its shareholders.

The focus on shareholders is usually a short-term view of an Organisation. It is usually a 3 monthly cycle of achieving certain results. Where, if results are not met, the Organisation is severely punished. In order to meet these short term results, so called leaders resort to anything including getting rid of core staff (often not the ones that are obviously bringing the results, but are the hidden jewels, alas), selling core assets and diverting the Organisation away from its true vision, merely to keep investors happy. I use the word merely quite purposefully. As I believe the shareholders are best served if these decisions are not made, if they want long-term "success".

I am not saying that recalcitrant employees should not be addressed appropriately. However, getting rid of employees, merely for short-term results achievement, is tantamount to throwing away the baby with the bath water! This is a different issue and the subject of a separate article.

Shareholders are best served if the Organisation stays focused on its customers; it's vision, even as times get tough and as shareholders want blood. Of course, one needs to stay relevant and the business of a leader is in fact to continually measure the Organisational one page business plan against market ensuring its validity. However, once validated and/or trimmed, a true leader stays focused on the customer and not the short-term blood thirst of the shareholders. Shareholders operate out of fear and a true leader knows this, and is able to stay on course while managing shareholders expectations.

However, back to the original hypothesis. As a leader there is a key choice to make; the customer, or the shareholder. And this is not about politics and rhetoric. It is about conviction.

Practically, what does this mean?

The customer-centric leader understands that the Organisational best asset is the employee. They do everything to ensure that everybody is on board and on purpose. They ensure that training is provided for all to stay on purpose and eliminates those that refuse to adopt the vision and are not on purpose. These are not necessarily recalcitrant employees. However, sometimes, there are valid differences of opinion and there is no place for an employee with opposing views of objectives. This is like letting a cancer grow. An on-purpose Organisation is unstoppable, profitable and has longevity built-in; it can whitstand down-times and maximize profits in good times, better serving its loyal shareholders.

I would not call CEOs and Managers of shareholder-centric organizations leaders. They might be brilliant in delivering great short-term dividends. However, the organizations they build are not sustainable long-term, have tragic customer satisfaction levels and have limited longevity. They are the heroes of investors but create organizations with low morale high staff turn-over and as a result unsustainable. In the long-term, this is bad news for loyal investors and create cronic down-turns as they do almost anything (as shown in the GFC) to ensure short-term results. They might be Managers, CEOs, great analysers, politicians; often charismatic, but not Leaders.

Unfortunately, these individuals are the yardstick for our youth and this is a sad indictment for our civilization that has placed money as a god above all gods.

Obviously, investors are by nature transient and they pick and choose, dropping perceived hot potatoes for the new short term money making opportunity. This is sometimes good for the investors hip-pocket, but always bad for business.

Apple is a great example of my views. Its share-value has been savaged even as it enjoys, unparalleled customer satisfaction, unparalleled profits, unparalleled growth of liquid assets unparalleled equity for a company of its size and has effectively created 5 new global product categories; simply because it has not met shareholder expectations! Absurd...

As a Leader, it is your choice. Choose wisely as true deep-in-the-heart conviction, alignment and happiness is worth much more than the short-term financial reward. And be clear that choosing the customer over the shareholder is a sure guarantee of investor return, almost and oxymoron!

CxO has proven alternative methodologies to turn your Organisation into a sustainable, long term, great entity. http://www.CxOconsulting.com.au. Aldo Grech is the managing Partner and Leader of CxO.

The Winning Curse

News is often full of fallen heroes; fallen to drugs, crime or bribery. Leadership is not the same as management or winning at all costs. Leadership is about being the best of who we are, leading by example and in the process creating other Leaders, not followers.

Hero worshiping is creating serious anomalies in our society and there is a need for our prime caregivers and education systems to re-frame and redefine how we are motivating our youth and what success means.

Ego is not the same as self-worth and self-respect. Ego is the opposite!

In my opinion Ego is the result of self-denial, where the value of oneself is so low, that from a young age we start comparing ourselves with others to create an avatar of ourselves that becomes our Ego; that we manipulate like a chameleon in every aspect of our life (friendships, relationships, work, play, etc) in order to cover-up that innate sense of worthlessness. This is exacerbated by the emphasis of our care-givers, from a very young age, where we are compared with others and where others (winners!) are established as yardsticks of success. Being individuals, we never match those others that we are compared with and that which we are taught to revere and thus starts the process of creating our fake avatar, the chameleon.

In this process, depression is a very likely path as we learn to suppress that who we are while we act in behaviors that make us appear to be successful, as defined by others. That suppression leads to depression.

And depression is not even the worst outcome. Performance enhancement drugs, bribery and crime often are outcomes that destroy our lives and those of those around us.

Our newspapers are currently full of devastating news like Pistorius, Lance Armstrong, extensive doping in Australian sports, and other fallen heroes/organisations.

The issue, is that instead of looking at this as an epidemic of our times, driven by our trained focus to "win at all costs", we look at these disasters as individual cases. Doing so, we continue making a bad situation worse.

The answer is simple but not so easy to deploy. It is simply about motivating our young to explore that which motivates them from the inside and for them to feel contented and loved for simply being who they are; rather than the unnatural pressure from day one to be better than the Jones's, to make more money, to drive better cars, wear set brands, etc...

And there is nothing wrong with aspiring to having the best that this world has on offer, and more. The difference is the motivation that gets us to achieve these, that needs to be internalized rather externalised; meaning, motivated from within rather than motivated by comparing ourselves with others.

Whether you are a mother, a school teacher, a manager or an orator, be a Leader and inspire others by motivating that beautiful energy that lies within them that will yield astounding results to themselves, your family and your organisation.

In our definition, Leaders are those that create Leaders and Leadership starts with one owning the responsibility of taking a Lead in their own life! Whether you know it or not, you are a Leader! Leaders exist in all walks of life. They are mothers, CEOs, volunteers, spiritualists, care-givers, receptionists, and the list goes on. However not all these role players are Leaders.

http://www.aldogrech.com

True Leaders Redefine Success

As a reader of my musings, you would know my definition of Leadership. Please refer to the bottom of this page to refresh yourself.

Consciously or subconsciously, most people will refer to success in terms of money, winning or corporate hierarchical achievement. In any case, it refers to making more or being more in reference to others.

I believe, this emanates from a human condition of less-than, of inadequacy, fear and shame that puts us on a never ending path of futility, chasing that which will not bring us true happiness. True success, I believe is being the best of who we can be in those areas of our passions and essence, when we are in our element. Somebody defined success as "wanting what I already have!"

When we use externals as measures for success, all we are doing is punishing ourselves be establishing success criteria that refer us to third-parties, a formula for unhappiness. If the measure of success is money, then if we do not have enough, we have failed, and how much is enough anyway. If the next promotion is the measure of our success, then, if a third party chooses not to promote us, we are placing the measure of success in the hands of another. If we define success as winning a race, then there are endless permutations that will give us, or not, the result we expect, and so, again, we place our success in the hands of others or third party conditions.

Now, I am not saying that there is anything wrong with money, winning or corporate achievement. However, if we link success (and happiness) to these outcomes, then we are handicapping ourselves.

Leadership comes from deep within us. It is the externalising of that gift that we were born to be. It is that childlike energy that does not fear or even understand the concept of being shamed or being ridiculed. It is based on self-respect and the respect of the opinion of others, and does not conclude that the opinion of others, if different to ours, makes us wrong... just different. Diversification is the essence and colorfulness of humankind.

It is also that confidence that allows us to accept 3rd party opinions of us and is able to dispassionately take from it that which serves us and discount the rest.

A true leader, motivates themselves and others by expecting the best of themselves and others and creates environments where mistakes are a positive element of progress. They do not pejoratively compare and understand that the richness of the differences are what makes their environment an enjoyable success.

In our definition, Leaders are those that create Leaders and Leadership starts with one owning the responsibility of taking a Lead in their own life! Whether you know it or not, you are a Leader! Leaders exist in all walks of life. They are mothers, CEOs, volunteers, spiritualists, care-givers, receptionists, and the list goes on. However not all these role players are Leaders.

http://www.aldogrech.com

An Intersection

Depression or Mid Life Crises are the intersection for Nature and Nurture! Enough said for now........

Compromise a Lose/Lose Strategy

A compromise is when 2 or more individuals almost agree, are almost happy and almost accept a less than ideal outcome for a situation. So at best, these individuals have accepted not to be totally happy, at peace, content, etc...

We have been trained to believe this is OK, and it has to be, for a society that is co-dependent. Co-dependency is not the same as respect and support. In fact it is the opposite. A compromise is about me not being true to my beliefs, visions, opinions and values, for the misguided purpose of making you happy; and this is also true for the other, who I reached a comprise with. It is synonymous to saying that my views are not totally valid unless you agree with them and vice-versa. Absolutely unacceptable!

This is both untrue and unhealthy and points to inappropriate engagement models.

My truth remains true to me independent of what you might think and at the very least, you should respect that I have every right to hold my views as it is for you. The true strength of a healthy relationship is where I honour your truths, views and ideals and you, mine. This is true relating independent of whether it is a parent/child relationship, husband/wife and any other healthy relationship.

We are all after truth and in care-taking, we abandon truth and choose what amounts to deceit.

An old adage goes, "I rather be hurt by the truth than a lie", and yet the latter seems more acceptable which is what compromise is all about. Our truths than become trapped behind the "but I do not want to upset him/her" behavior, that then turns to resentment and eventually probably rage and who knows what else.

So let's never choose a compromise, rather respect for each others opinions which is fertile ground for truth, intimacy and growth.

There Is No "I" In Nature

We live in an ecosystem that's made-up of subset and superset ecosystems. They are inter-reliant and by their nature are very fragile. This fragility ensures the ongoing evolution of the same ecosystem that relies on this mechanism as its method of survival and development.

Humankind is an ecosystem within this ecosystem. Unbalance in an ecosystem creates shifts that alter our ecosystem for the better; survival. Sometimes this happens at the cost of some specious as we have seen with the dinosaurs. If humankind really desires longevity in this ecosystem, we need to respect this balance or suffer the worst possible outcome for our kind.

All ecosystems are constantly in a state of change and rebalancing as they become more and more resilient. Humans are one phase of this ongoing ecosystem change. So by design, we are transient and as we transition to our next stage (should there be one), we need to work collectively towards this aim. There are many nascent initiatives, towards this goal, some spiritual, some industrial and others conceptual. I believe that the real answer lies in the "WE". The energy that lives these ecosystems is one energy and it is the same energy that is us. It is one and the same energy that lives and breaths us as does trees, and every other living organism. As one, we are able to continue the evolution of our species. As "I", we are one-by-one, driven by the greed and ego of "I" destroying the "We", our same humanity as we destroy our planet.

The "I" results from our upbringing, in a society that has been galvanized by the success of the individual. But this is a misguided notion as real success stories are underpinned by the work of a collective rather than one individual. The greed of our Ego is driving us to compete at any cost, in the process losing ourselves, our families, our sense of compassion and more importantly humankind, as we race blinded by the objective of being the ultimate winner who, in our culture is defined as the one with most money.

There is no "I" in nature but the collective "We" that includes the cosmos, our solar system, our beautiful planet, the trees, the oceans, you and I. Our fear and shame drives our Ego to achieve at all cost, in the process losing everything. And yet, the alternative brings so much more adundance, peace and happiness, bundles of compassion and a humanity that lives as one with nature and itself.

Call me a dreamer. However, at 55 and many of these years driven by greed, I see the only real alternative we have, which is to focus on our creativity rather than the greed of Ego. The only real and sustainable wealth!