Who's Job Is It?

Written by: Craig Twombly

Published: May 2013

After a few months off from writing articles I have slowed down and I am now taking a moment to catch my breath and reflect back to what a wonderful job I have. Over the last several months, I have had the opportunity to spend a great deal of time on the highways and byways of the Northeast. This in turn has left me with a great deal of time to reflect back on workshops and interactions with people along the way. In keeping with theme from Ralph & Misty's articles I have a leadership question. During a recent workshop, the group began an exercise around leadership. The leadership challenge is an exercise based on the individual and what they see as most important to least important in the five elements of leadership. One participant posed a great question during the exercise. The individual stated "I have no authority so therefore I cannot share my values." As the group discussed his comment I could see this person (as well as the rest of the group) was trying to grasp the concept of leadership, but struggled. We stopped for a break and, once the group returned and settled in, we discussed the concept further. We broke the concept down into two buckets. The Management Bucket, which over the last several years has been a trying and stressful position. A manager has subordinates and includes authority to which they are responsible for. Many of the responsibilities that a manager might have are transactional by nature. They can include things such as schedule writing, workflow, quality adherence, problem resolution, staffing concerns, and so on. Over the last several years as many organizations have struggled and cut costs, the management skills have been in high demand. The group agreed with this definition and added a few transactional tasks that they could think of and determined this is truly where "Authority" stood, and as a manger you used Authority to execute decisions when needed. The second bucket is Leadership Bucket, which has a more charismatic style. The leader might have a strong personality, but that does not mean they are loud or even visible. A leader can also be a "good" people person, but this does not mean they are friendly hanging out with people. Sometimes leaders are more mysterious than managers, and sometimes a little mystique is beneficial. The group further decided a leader is more of a risk taker and is more transformational than the manager counterpart. So as we carried on the question was asked, "Does a manager have to be a leader or does a leader have to be a manager?" As you might guess the answer is surely No and No. The individual who posed the first question looked at the flipcharts, agreed in thought and then asked the follow-up statement. "This is all great information but, These Kids today"... you can complete the rest of his comment in your head (are lazy, don't care, self-centered, etc.). What he was referring to with kids is the broad term used for anyone who has just entered the workforce in the last 5-10 years. He felt his boss was responsible for managing and leading and, no matter what he did, the team around him, which was much younger than him, would not work as hard as him and would challenge anything he suggested (due to the fact he was not a manager but an aspiring one). In the end he was discussing his frustration around some of his teammates' customer service skills and such. It was not to say that everyone on his team was struggling or did not care. He had an overriding sense that Authority was the only way to get the standard bar higher with his team. Let me fast forward to today by saying that we live in a staggeringly fast-moving society where decision and moves are made at the speed of light. We also live in an era where any question could be answered at the touch of a key on your phone. I would like your thoughts regarding "Who's Job Is It?" to be a leader. I believe I can go out on a limb and suggest that we all are responsible for being a leader to some extent. We have also discussed several times that being a leader takes some risk. With all of that, how much responsibility do we have to be a leader and what should the guidelines be for the leader who is not a manager (or has a title)? I truly welcome your thoughts and would love to hear what you think.