Expectations

Effective Leaders Don’t Need to Be Specialists

/ Ken Blanchard / 3 Comments

Some folks wonder whether or not it’s true that a good leader can manage anyone—even someone doing a job the leader doesn’t understand or someone with skills the leader doesn’t have. And, if it’s true, how is it possible?

In fact, leaders are often responsible for individuals who perform tasks the leader may never have personally done. This is why you sometimes hear of managers and executives who successfully change jobs from one industry to a completely different one. How is this possible, you ask? First, leaders often coordinate activities of highly skilled, mature employees who are often capable of  working with little supervision.  Second, leadership is primarily a people activity. If a person has good people skills such as the ability to motivate, communicate, and listen, then that person has the most important attributes of being a good leader, regardless of the type of work being done by direct reports.

If an employee is working in a specialized job with which his or her manager has had little or no experience, that manager can still help that employee achieve top results by listening to find out what that person needs to successfully do the job and working to meet those needs. In addition, a good leader can be a sounding board for ideas and can help talk through problems. A leader can also represent the importance and value of the person’s work to others within the organization.

In short, an effective leader must be resourceful.  Remember, a common definition of management is “getting things done through others.”

This description of a good leader differs from the popular image held by many people.  The effective leader or manager is not an all-knowing, multi-talented “super worker.”  I’m glad to report that this stereotype is on its way out. We don’t need leaders who are good at everything—we need leaders who are very good at a few things, such as helping workers get what they need to complete their jobs or being adept at coordination throughout an organization.

Peter Drucker, one of the top leadership gurus, claimed that the best model for tomorrow’s organization is that of a symphony orchestra.  In such an organization, a single person—the conductor—coordinates the performance of hundreds of specialists. The conductor communicates directly with each musician and can tell the musician what is needed to achieve the right combination of sounds without knowing how to play the tuba or the drums.

Effective leaders must know and be able to communicate what is expected.  They provide the big picture.  They don’t need to know exactly what must be done by specific individuals or departments to achieve those expectations.  Effective leaders set goals and then translate those goals for others using clear communication. This ensures that the number of management levels between the CEO and those doing the job will not need to increase.  Many organizations today have fewer layers of management and wider spans of control for leaders than typical hierarchies in the past.  Increasingly, organizations will become loose-knit clusters of specialists who are served by their leaders.

Remember: Leaders are more likely to be effective at managing anyone if they have or develop the skills that are related to people and not specifically to a job or profession.

Evaluating Partnerships

/ Ken Blanchard / 2 Comments

A lot of people ask me for advice about partnerships.  Many will tell me about a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” that a friend or associate has shared with them and asked if they’d like to participate.  Often, the opportunity involves either investing a significant amount of time or money, or a dramatic shift into a new career path, or both.

My advice to such individuals is simple.  First, I often ask them if it is something they really want to do; that is, do they truly enjoy this activity to the extent that they might even consider doing it without pay?  For someone to be successful at something, they first need to truly enjoy that activity—otherwise, they are likely not to have enough persistence during times of difficulty.  To me, enjoying what you are doing is an acid test in business as well as life.  If you are having fun, it’s more likely that you will confuse work with play and that you will be successful at that activity.

Second, whenever considering getting into a partnership, you should always ask yourself the question: “Could either of us do this without the other person?”  (Have the other individual in the potential partnership ask the same question.)  If either of you answer “yes,” or even “maybe,” seriously reexamine the need for the partnership.             If you’re uncertain as to how necessary the other person is in a new venture at the very best of times—the beginning—you will certainly doubt and likely regret your mutual involvement down the line; perhaps sooner rather than later.  If there’s a good chance you could do the activity on your own, go for it!  Life is apt to be a lot simpler if you do.

In a partnership, both individuals involved need to bring something to the party—and each person needs to recognize and value the other person’s contribution.  If the importance of each person’s role isn’t clearly recognized upfront, it most assuredly will be valued even less later.  In the event of failure, individuals often are quick to blame the other person for shortcomings.  In the event of success, most people are apt to feel the success was mainly a result of their own efforts. These reactions are human nature.  A clear initial understanding, agreement, and belief in what each person is contributing to the success of a joint venture will go a long way toward minimizing exaggerated perceptions and expectations of effort and worth at a later date.

Third, a piece of common sense advice I truly believe regarding partnerships is that to be effective you need more than a 50-50 effort of both parties; you need 100-100 percent effort.  Both parties need to give the venture 100 percent.  Fifty percent effort is only half-hearted!  If you are no more excited about the opportunity at hand than to feel you are only responsible for 50 percent of the effort, the partnership is doomed from the start. I feel that 100 percent effort needs to be given 100 percent of the time by both parties in any partnership. Such an all-out commitment forces you to move ahead at full speed in making the venture a success.  It forces you to rely on yourself, not someone else, to make things happen.  It also affords you the ability to give the other person the benefit of the doubt when his or her effort, interest, or time spent seems to be less than ideal.

I have found that it is many times more difficult to break up a partnership—especially if you want to do so on good terms—than it is to start one.  By following these simple rules of thumb, you might save yourself some unpleasantness (and possibly a friend) in the process!

What do you expect of people?

/ Ken Blanchard / 3 Comments

Here is a small sampling I really enjoyed from my book with Don Shula, Everyone’s A Coach.

The way managers treat people is powerfully influenced by what they expect of people. If a manager’s expectations are high, productivity is likely to be excellent. If expectations are low, productivity is likely to be poor. It is as though there were a natural law that caused a person’s performance to rise or fall to meet his or her manager’s expectations. My wife Margie has often said that one of the reasons she didn’t get into trouble when she was a young person was that she knew her parents expected the best of her and knew she would be a good role model for her younger sisters. She never wanted to let her parents down. Continue reading →