On Why Leadership May Not Be What You Think

Despite what some people might say, leadership is not the same as management. The term "Leader" should denote someone that you want to aspire to be because of vision, inspiration, innovation, and being what I like to call an outright "Difference Maker". The term "Manager" unfortunately can more than often have a negative connotation. One might think of it as someone who actually cannot lead, someone who "micromanages" everything the individual contributors do. What is more unfortunate, the two terms "Leader" and "Manager" become synonymous -- but today, I will illustrate how they are not mutually exclusive.

Promotions to management happen every day in companies large and small. Often times, individual contributors may feel as if they "deserve" the role of manager because of "tenure" and managers sometimes feel they "have" to promote because of seniority. However, to be clear, when an individual contributor is promoted, it does not necessarily, therefore, mean that by default, that she is now a leader. Simply put, for purposes of this post, we will look at management as a "title-based" promotion and Leadership is a "value-based" adjective for any person, irrespective of her title within an organization.

In 1836, Samuel Johnson published one of the earliest known dictionaries in America which he entitled (rightfully so) "Johnson's Dictionary". I looked to see how we defined it hundreds of years ago. Interestingly, Johnson defined a leader as "a conductor, a commander". In either instance, I envision the same type of person under this definition in the corporate world.

In the first instance, a conductor is someone who stands before an orchestra. She has a vision of what the music should sound like, where the sound comes from, and accordingly who should be making the sounds. Whether it is a cheery or melancholy piece, it is the role of the conductor to inspire the musicians to not just play the instruments, but rather to make the instruments truly "sing". It is her role to unite musicians with disparate instruments to sound like one, and to believe in the story the piece should have just as passionately as the conductor.

It is noteworthy that although the word "Commander" typically would denote an authoritarian or militaristic individual, I believe there's so much more to the word. Instead, I envision a commander in front of a group of brave women and men who are about to go into battle. Her job, as commander, is to unite fellow sisters and brothers in arms with disparate weapons to be as one and to believe in the mission in front of them. To do so, she must lay out the strategy, where the battle lines are, and inspire and lift them up because win or lose the battle, some of them may lose their own lives. In other words, it is her role to unite disparate people from various walks of life to serve as one, and to believe in the mission just as passionately as the commander.

Thinking through these two examples, the women in both instances are title-based leaders (i.e., "Conductor" or "Commander). Yet, her success as such is not measured by just her title, but rather her ability to successfully showcase her expertise in a given area, think outside of the box, understand the strategy and/or help the downstream flow to execute upon a plan, develop her own ideas that will allow for the appropriate execution of the plan. That therein lies value-based leadership.

In the corporate world, individual contributors can have this kind of impact even without the title of manager. Furthermore, one's ability to align other individuals to the mission of the company -- to believe in something vastly bigger than themselves -- does not, nor should it require the title of manager, director, VP, or a C-Suite designation. In truth, without teamwork, that purpose will never be realized and discord occurs.

Not surprisingly, the disconnect in most organizations between title-based and value-based leadership is that all too often individual contributors are not provided with an opportunity to showcase their leadership skills. Yet, the reality is that without the leadership of individual contributors, companies simply won't excel. You see, a strategy is only so good as the individual contributor's inspired belief that she can make a difference in executing against the organization's vision and purpose. Think about that for a moment. Throughout my entire career, I have countless examples in which one person believed so much in the purpose and vision of the organization (myself included), that they truly made a massive impact on an entire industry! I've also seen the converse - - and I'm sure you have as well, in which one person has so much disdain and negativity that they bring others down around them.

I would take it one step even further and opine that individual contributors should not be promoted to a title-based role of a manager unless there has been an objective test performed that measures her leadership capabilities in a management position. Whether you call that "emotional intelligence", a "360-degree review", or a "StrengthsFinder" test, an objective test to see how this person would be in the role as manager would give more of a glimpse than simply her ability to execute on objectives. As we know, when some people enter management, that person's personality may either blossom or wilt.

Without basic and fundamental leadership attributes, people that are just promoted into management level positions without a thorough analysis such as the above are not just doing a disservice to their individual contributors, their business unit, their board of directors, and their customers, but she would be doing a disservice to the individual.

Often times organizations feel that one of the greatest losses they can suffer is losing a big client. However, I proffer that failing to appropriately empower individual contributors to feel as if they can not only contribute but importantly, that the work that they do matters is one of the greatest losses a company can suffer. A leader must be that conductor irrespective of title and it is the responsibility of the organization as a whole to empower the individual contributor to believe that they have a voice in driving the strategy.

I'll close with this: as a value-based leader, you are inspiring everyone at the company to achieve great successes through positivity and empowerment. What companies need today is not more artificial promotions or "title-based" leadership roles ... but rather, what we need is more "value-based" leadership.

In my next post, I will talk about how companies can start changing their culture to focus more on positivity to create the best company. Ever.