The Manager’s Responsibility for Leadership

Is to create clarity where it may not yet exist.

“There's something unique and different that makes a leader, and it's not about creativity or courage or integrity. As important as they are, you can have those attributes and still fail to be a great leader. A leader's job is to rally people toward a better future. Leaders can't help but change the present, because the present isn't good enough. They succeed only when they find a way to make people excited by and confident in what comes next… The need for a talent for optimism is almost self-evident. As a leader, you must believe, deeply, instinctively, that things can get better.”
—Marcus Buckingham

Marcus Buckingham has written quite a bit about both management and leadership, and I’ve read most of it, for I’ve been a fan of his for quite a while now. I recommend his books to people often, and I think his current title (Go Put Your Strengths To Work) truly helps people apply strengths management theory with its aha! moment to connect your strengths to specifically defined activities. For most managers, the “soft stuff” of management is actually the hardest stuff they have to learn to apply and use.

In contrast, I felt the book Buckingham called The One Thing You Need to Know fell short in making the impact it quite possibly could have. I’m not sure that even his most devoted fans when thinking back on it, could tell you what that one thing about “great managing, great leading, and sustained individual success” were (there were actually three things, one for each). I have to look them up again every so often too. I also suspect that Buckingham may have changed his mind about his one thing on leadership, and published the book prematurely (just a thought).

However The One Thing You Need to Know did make a lasting impression on me; I’m just not sure it was the one he intended to make. This is the one thing I latched onto as what I would remember about the manager’s responsibility for leadership; the single word of ‘clarity.’

“Clarity is the antidote to anxiety, and therefore clarity is the preoccupation of the effective leader. If you do nothing else as a leader, be clear. Leaders can be wrong. They can't be confusing.”
—Marcus Buckingham

As I consider it through my lens of Kuleana (which you now know as the Hawaiian value of responsibility), I believe that the manager’s responsibility for leadership within his or her circle of influence, is indeed to constantly make everything clear.

When you are the manager;
You don’t have to know it all.
You don’t have to own it all.
You certainly don’t have to do it all.
However if it is necessary, you are responsible for making it clear,
whatever “it” happens to be.

In the Role of the Manager Reconstructed I stated it this way:

Managers get the work to make perfect sense.

Connect the work to be done with the meaning why.

The manager’s responsibility for leadership is the responsibility for providing clarity.

When people are wondering about work, the manager is there to help them find the answers they seek, and often, that answer is to be found within that picture of “a better future” Buckingham talks about, whether that future is tomorrow, in ten years, or just about an hour from now.

The manager doesn’t have all the answers, but the the manager’s kuleana (responsibility) is to be the person who takes ownership of getting the answers found — and frankly, not playing it safe and wimping out about it when those answers are not always pretty. Coaching comes in when the manager has an answer, or has discovered it, but may choose not give it to another person outright, choosing to coach them through the thinking process and toward making their own discovery.

What do you think? Am I making this sound too simple?

Photo on Flickr: Its Future is in our Hands - Live Earth by aussiegall.

Comments

[Linda]

Dear Rosa,

I am so happy I found your post and learned more about Marcus Buckingham's books. I am going to read "Go Put . . . ." as soon as I can buy it.

I totally agree with the statement you make about most managers having a hard time applying and using the "soft stuff" of leadership skills. One book that has personally helped me with that is "Step Up! How to Win More and Lose Less in Business!" by Daniel Grissom. It's a quick read, and a unique blend of success tips for business (and for life). It addresses excellence, how a manager can improve the workplace in many different ways, as well as why some managers/leaders are better at accomplishing this than others. I found it very informative.

Hope you like it, too. I love your blog --and I love Hawaii, too -- I call it the Garden of Eden.

Cheers,
Linda

[Rosa Say]

Aloha Linda, thank you for commenting for me, I'm glad you found your way here too!

I will have to check out Daniel Grissom's book - mahalo for the recommendation, and for adding the link for us.

As for MB's book, be sure you do the exercises he lines out - to just read it through will not give you the same effect.

[GreatManagement]

Rosa,

I have also been a huge fan of MB's and seen him in action several times. His books and presentations are very inspiring!

"What do you think? Am I making this sound too simple?"

It sounds simple and the advice is spot-on; however in practice it is very hard to do! Especially in a large corporate office. A 'new direction' comes down from the Board, you have to decipher the news, one adds their own thoughts and by the time it gets down to the staff, it has been diluted, the reasons why forgotten and the manager says 'I don't know why we are doing this but it's what we've been told - so there we are'.

Andrew

[Rosa Say]

Aloha Andrew,

It certainly will remain hard to do in a culture like the one you describe. Phil Wylie and I are currently having a conversation about this at the Employee Engagement Network in the context of employee surveys and assessment tools (I'll add the link to my name in this comment.)

What I wrote there just yesterday:
"Phil, I think you are hitting on a big problem with most assessments and employee surveys: Rarely is their intention adequately shared in organizations, and those who actually take them are left wondering on their own - I wonder why we're doing this, and I wonder what they are looking for, and I wonder what the boss intends to do with this stuff, and I wonder why I even bother with this, and I wonder why no one remembers what happened the last time we did this... then the survey or the assessment gets rendered pretty useless because those who take them just game 'em to play it safe and dispense with the whole affair."

I believe we have good news here though, in that those situations can be remedied. This is more than optimism: It has to do with being willing to go the distance in a step by step approach with making a culture healthier.
I see it this way:

A--- Strengths management itself gets way, way easier when the manager can be focused on handling it as a first priority of their responsibility and not a secondary one. [See the Role of the Manager Reconstructed: http://tinyurl.com/2tjugr]
B--- However there's the rub, and there's what is much harder right now: Improving the organizational culture to a point where the manager (and everyone else) can do their work in a better way.

I agree that MB, Gallup and others are doing a terrific job in getting the word out about the strengths management movement and with his last book, MB gave us a tool/process to use. However they leave B above up to us (and thus the mission of MWA! --- reinventing workplace culture value by value :)

[GreatManagement]

Rosa,

I have chosen this post for my weekly GreatManagement Inspirational Articles - The Best Advice From Around The Web. (www.greatmanagement.org).

Andrew

[Rosa Say]

Mahalo nui loa Andrew!