Lead Like You Mean It

An Introduction to the Art of Relational Leadership

Daniel Schotter

• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781628386820
• eBook ISBN: 9781628386837
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Personal Success

More often than not, leaders make the mistake of assuming that they know everything, when in fact they don't. They make the assumption that as long as the numbers and output are good, that all is well. In this book by Daniel K. Schotter, leaders and aspiring leaders alike are taught that there is more to leadership and management than meets the eye.

Schotter puts into the spotlight the concept of Relational Leadership, which he says is the key to improving productivity through building personal

CHAPTER 1

The Problem

Lead, follow, or get out of the way.

—Thomas Paine

This book is intended to be a conversation and internal search aimed at defining what it means to be a true leader. Too often, we use the words leader and manager interchangeably.

To me there is one major difference. The title of “manager” is usually bestowed on someone who is put in a position where they are expected to perform some aspect of business-based decision making. They are responsible for the execution and completion of a project: the manufacture of a product for instance. They might also be responsible for the function of a restaurant or other small business. They might be responsible for the operation of a major corporation. Managers make decisions on company policy, business execution, hiring and firing, product promotion and advertising, capital expenditures, etc. All of these activities can be accomplished totally without coming in direct contact with those people expected to carry out the decisions of the manager. Unfortunately, however, too often those who perform these “manager” roles need to interact with employees.

This is where the opportunity to be a leader begins. A leader is someone who uses their ability to interact with and motivate people to execute the tasks needed to make the business function and be successful.

Leaders are like the director of an orchestra. It is their passion, knowledge, and interpretation of the music that is reflected in the performance of a symphony. It is the orchestra, however, that actually makes the music. No one, I believe, has ever seen an orchestra conductor attempt to perform a symphony by himself. It is the conductor’s ability to interact with the orchestra members and help them understand their intent with the execution of the music that makes the performance successful.

This seems to be where the unraveling begins. As managers and leaders, we often visualize the behaviors or actions that we want to achieve. We attempt to communicate to our employees what we want to occur. But we fail to understand that not everyone understands or shares our vision. And just as importantly, not everyone that we are involved with has the ability to perform as we expect them to in order to help the group be successful. This is one of the greatest challenges of leadership.

How often are we disappointed with the driver in the car ahead of us as we commute to work? You assume that his erratic behavior is an indication of some sort of mental condition. You question how someone with his apparent lack of driving skills could even get a driver’s license. You wonder why his parents never taught him common courtesy. The list goes on. If he would just perform in the way that you visualize he should, you would get to work quicker, safer and arrive in a better mood. Is that true? Do we really know anything about the person in the car ahead of us, or are we simply making judgments based on observed behavior and a few assumptions about their mental abilities?

Both in our roles as leaders and in our everyday lives, we too often make judgments and take action based on our perception of reality without taking the time to truly understand the person at the base of the issue. People are extremely complex creatures. They are often driven by emotion. Their surroundings, on a minute-by-minute basis, can have a major effect on how they act and react. If we base our judgments of an individual solely on the external behavior we are able to observe, we are missing the core of what it means to be a leader. If we don’t take the effort to peel back the exterior to reveal and attempt to understand what makes this individual tick we can never expect them to perform to the level of our expectations or, even more important, to the individuals highest potential.

We will discuss this in greater detail in the chapters ahead. For now, let’s just say that this whole leadership thing is not easy. There will need to be a significant amount of effort on your part to make it work.

Let’s take a look at how the company I worked for approached leadership development.

My almost thirty years in industry was spent working for and with technically trained engineers. For the first part of any engineer’s career, advancement and movement up the promotion ladder is based primarily on their technical prowess and accomplishments. The ability to apply the basic technical fundamentals learned in school to the complex problems encountered within the defense industry can quickly identify those who are viewed as individuals who will rise through the ranks of the company.

Midcareer, there begins to be a need to promote individuals into what is often called functional management. These positions are seen as “people managers.” In a matrix organization, these are the “people owners” or home organization for technical talent.

When dealing with technical people, these midcareer promotions are often based on prior technical accomplishments. These are the individuals who stood out in their ability to achieve technical success. There may have been no obvious display of leadership capability from these individuals. They had simply demonstrated an ability to control and direct their own actions, and they expressed an interest in moving up within the company. This often becomes a problem.

These functional management roles are accepted by these technically focused individuals, not because of a desire or ability to lead people, but because this is viewed as an avenue to being promoted. The additional level of responsibility in directing the actions of a group of people rather than just their own actions is considered a way to develop leaders. Oh, by the way, these roles often come with significant salary increases and bonus benefits.

After a couple of years, many of these individuals give up on these leadership roles and take other technical positions within the company. They think they have paid their dues/served their time in a functional role, got the promotion and other benefits they wanted, and so now they can go back to doing what they really enjoy.

Some individuals take on higher leadership roles—not because they actually excelled as leaders, but because they demonstrated some level of success as managers. In general, they enjoy the perks and recognition that these roles bring, and they decided not to bail out to pursue other more technical challenges.

The cycle is self-perpetuating as some of these individuals continue to move up within the company. They promote individuals who most resemble themselves. They still, however, have never truly developed an understanding of what the word leadership means in spite of having waded through a handful of books on the subject.

Technical individuals often feel the need to continue to demonstrate their own individual value to the company by continuing to produce technical accomplishments. These types of accomplishments become more and more difficult to achieve when you are in a “people leadership” role. This often becomes a major dilemma for these individuals. So what do these highly creative people do? They create other work to focus on: to fill the time they are not spending interacting with their people. In my company, these “busy work” tasks were called Initiatives. These Initiatives are intended to resolve broad issues identified within the Engineering organization that have an impact on the company, such as high development costs, product rework, or other systemic problems. Regardless of the intention, these tasks fill the leader’s time with activities other than being an actual leader. In my opinion, these tasks would be better served by having a dedicated technical problem solver focus on them instead of a functional manager.

My basic premise is that if no one is steering the ship, we shouldn’t be surprised when it hits the rocks. Major systemic issues arise because the root cause for these issues is not being addressed at their origin. People cause these problems, albeit unintentionally, because they lack the resources and/or leader oversight to do the task right the first time. Leaders often assume that everything is going well if they...

Table of contents

• LEAD Like you Mean It
• INTRODUCTION
• CHAPTER 1
• CHAPTER 2
• CHAPTER 3
• CHAPTER 4
• CHAPTER 5
• CHAPTER 6
• CHAPTER 7
• CHAPTER 8
• EPILOGUE
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR