Here is a personal goal I ask you to think about adopting in 2010 with me, as part of your Ho”›ohana [intention for worthwhile work], especially if you are in that “assumed leadership” strata on your company org chart: Reduce your leadership to a part-time gig.
Leading need not be a solo proposition
Reduce your leadership with a two-part strategy:
- Share it. Leadership is not something anyone need do by themselves. In fact, they probably shouldn’t.
- Return to the deliberate work ethic of a better-defined management style. Manage more than you lead, and in the process, accomplish them both. Accomplish them better.
Back in July, I posted an article about The 30-70 Rule in Leading and Managing, and reviewing it can help you think about this in both a practical and intentional way. Besides the productivity slant of it, the article covers the intentions we bring to leading (and creating workplace energies) and managing (to channel those newly available energies).
10 zero 10 by Jeremy Brooks on Flickr
Value-driven by Ho”›ohana and Ka lā hiki ola
I am thinking of this again because I am working on penning the strategic initiatives I will bring to my own businesses in 2010, and I am realizing just how much that 30-70 Rule will help me make my chosen initiatives happen.
I have my leadership ideas creating the energy I want and the energy I need, and I am quite excited about them, yet I realize that I truly do not need to be stirring the pot any more than that. I want the Ka lā hiki ola energy within the “dawning of a new day” and not the wind-whipping tempest of a hurricane. There is a lot within my 30 —it is an ambitious, robust 30.
Therefore, I will need the other 70 —my 70% management intentions within my Strong Week Planning— to make those leadership ideas happen: To get them to come true by the time this yearend season rolls around again twelve months from now.
A quick review of the Role of the Manager the Alaka‘i way, and as a calling: From How Managers Matter in a Healthy Culture:
1. People: Managers concentrate on strengths and make weaknesses irrelevant.
Managers discover what strengths each of the people they manage possess. They then place people where they are called on to employ those strengths and capitalize on them, giving them the authority to completely own their responsibilities and perform brilliantly.
2. Place: Managers create great workplaces where people thrive.
Managers focus on creating an environment where rewarding work happens. They continually work to remove obstacles (such as negativity), barriers, and excuses, while adding the needed support, tools and resources. Great managers are the stewards of healthy organizational cultures.
3. Mission: Managers get the work to make perfect sense.
Managers connect the work to be done with the meaning why. They plan to succeed with a viable business model, so people always see realistic possibility, and they encourage people to work on the enterprise with them, not just within it.
4. Vision: Managers expect and promote the exceptional.
Great managers never settle for mediocrity; they champion excellence so people rise to the occasion. Managers lead too; they mentor and coach, harnessing energy and driving action. They foster sequential and consequential learning so people continue to grow.
I am Manager, hear me roar
In 2010, dare to call yourself a manager, and be a great manager instead of a “leader.”
I am not saying to stop leading, not at all. I am saying to put leadership in better perspective as another thing that great managers do, and do well. Do it better than most self-proclaimed leaders do.
Think about the definition we have been using, where simply said, management is about channeling available energies into optimal productivity, a productivity aimed at whatever mission or vision (or strategic objectives) we have set our sights on. If only we had more of that!
People continue to write books about leadership, touting “more leadership” as what we desperately need. I admit that I have been thinking that way too, but 2009 and the challenges we still face have illustrated something to me: What is working best for those in the success stories we see unfolding, is a return to more management concentration, but in that reinvention that management still needs to achieve. You can expect that is where my attentions will now be as I continue to share my writing with you.
I will still keep my posting loosely organized here as “Tuesdays for leading” and “Thursdays from managing” because it is easier for us to remember as one of our connections and two days touchpoints. However they are just blog posts: the real work to be done is in our daily practice every day of the week, isn’t it.
Could Ho”›ohana and Ka lā hiki ola be value-drivers for you?
Where is your thinking on what 2010 can achieve for you?
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