“The culture of any organization is shaped by the worst behavior the leader is willing to tolerate.”
What departments and/or managers do people in your company clamor to get into? What drives this clamor? I’ve seen it before. No one wants to work in finance, but everyone wants to be in marketing. Or everyone is trying to figure out a way to work for manager A instead of having to report to manager B. What is driving the popularity of the department or the person, and should we pay attention to it? Is the number of people who want to work for you a good way to measure your leadership strength?
Kris Dunn calls it “Leadership Gravity” in his Workforce Article. But I think we need to get to the root of what causes the gravitational pull before we bank on it as a way to measure leadership success.
Some recent coaching examples I’ve encountered may give us some insight on the pull….
- Leaders that are everyone’s best friend
- Leaders that hold people accountable for results and because they are held accountable, they grow. This is what Kris is talking about when he says,
“All that interaction and observation means your employees know which managers in your organization are the best at developing talent, giving them interesting things to work on, challenging them, giving them the credit for great work and always approaching employee development with an eye on what’s best for each employee.”
I’ve had a couple of clients who have brought us in to say, hey, we think something is up with John/Jane Doe’s performance as a leader. We need a 360o evaluation of them. Can you do one and then let us know what’s up?
Sure we can.
In completely unrelated instances, the “perception” of the leader in question is he/she being the guy/gal no one wants to work for. He/she is usually compared to a counterpart middle level leader in his/her area. The counterpart seems to be best buds with his/her direct reports- i.e., the popular one.
We do the 360o. And we look at it by those that report to this person and those that don’t. In both instances, the people who report to the boss in question don’t say he/she is the jerk. They cite he/she as being focused on accountability, and, surprisingly, they don’t complain about it. They may say something about wishing he/she was a little “warmer” as a person. A little less closed off, but not a jerk.
In contrast, those who are looking from the outside, i.e.-those that don’t report to this manager, and sometimes it is his/her own boss- cite he/she as being the jerk.
Maybe the manager in question needs to improve his/her interpersonal skills by lightening up a bit, seeing the personal side of things. We can coach on that. But, at the end of the day, they challenge people to get stuff done and hold them accountable for it, and the people who are held accountable don’t mind it. They grow. Maybe they just want the boss to ask about how their day has been a little more, but they are better because of their leader.
So maybe the better question about how to measure leadership is not by popularity but by measuring what DRIVES that popularity.
Is it because he/she is best friends with people and lets them coast or is it because he/she creates a vision and drives people towards that vision and holds them accountable for it?
If I were the boss’ boss, I’d choose the latter. That one is making more leaders, and 9 times out of 10 those who are following, aren’t complaining about it. And the ones who are complaining, you may not want around anyway.
What popularity contests do you see in your workplace?
