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| Bad Boss? Learn How to Manage Your Manager |
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My latest article in The Globe & Mail
(Canada's largest national newspaper) appeared on August 4, 2005. This
piece was a great opportunity to pull together the various facets of
upward leadership I have addressed in my books, articles, and the Leader Letter.
This "managing your manager" article outlines what I think are the six
main reasons for bad bosses and provides eight "boss management
strategies." Click here to read the full article.
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| More Articles on Upward Leadership |
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Here
are a few additional book excerpts and articles from our web site
directly dealing with managing your manager. The first article provides
a broader context for upward leadership. "If It's Going to Be It's Up
to Me" is the sub-title of my chapter on "Responsibility for Choices"
from Growing the Distance: Timeless Principles for Personal, Career, and Family Success.
When dealing with an ineffective manager, a key choice in deciding to
be a leader or not is whether we are a victim, survivor, or navigator.
If It's Going to Be It's Up to Me
Life
is an endless series of choices. Happy and successful people take
responsibility for choices as well as consequences of their actions.
Being a Strong Leader Despite a Bad Boss
Strong leaders don't allow themselves to be victims of a bad boss. We
may not be able to choose our boss, but we can choose how to respond to
him or her.
Management Teams Often Handicap Themselves
Strong
management teams change and improve their organizations despite
obstacles, handicaps and problems. It's called leadership.
Many Managers Disempower Themselves
Many
managers unwittingly believe that leadership only comes down from the
top. They give away their power by believing that they don't have any.
Stop Whining and Start Leading
Less
effective managers aspire to lead but end up demoralizing their own
teams and frustrating themselves by choosing to be disempowered by
their bosses. They unwittingly fall for the cult of heroic management
-- the notion that leadership comes down from on high.
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| Thoughts That Make You Go Hmmmm...on Upward Leadership |
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"Few
will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each one of us can
work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those
acts will be written the history of this generation."
- Robert F. Kennedy
"A
major drain on most managers' energy is the perception that they have
limited influence. Purposeful managers, by contrast, are acutely aware
of the choice they can make - and they systematically extend their
freedom to act. They manage their bosses' expectations, find ways to
independently access required resources, develop relationships with
influential people, and build specific competencies that broaden their
choices and ability to act."
- Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal, "Beware the Busy Manager," Harvard Business Review
"Leadership
is distributed. It resides not solely in the individual at the top, but
in every person at every level who, in one way or another, acts as a
leader to a group of followers - wherever in the organization that
person is, whether shop steward, team head, or C.E.O."
- Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis & Annie McKee, Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence
"While
the popular view of mentors is that they seek out younger people to
encourage and champion, in fact the reverse is more often true. The
best mentors are usually recruited, and one mark of a future leader is
the ability to identify, woo, and win the mentors who will change his
or her life."
- Warren G. Bennis, "The Seven Ages of the Leader", Harvard Business Review
"We often wait for someone to open the door. But the handle is on the inside."
- Unknown
"The
best servants of the people, like the best valets, must whisper
unpleasant truths in the master's ear. It is the court fool, not the
foolish courtier, whom the king can least afford to lose."
- Walter Lippman, author, political advisor, and editor
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Permission to Reprint: You may reprint any items from the Leader Letter in your own printed publication or e-newsletter as long as you include this paragraph:
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"Reprinted with permission from the Leader Letter,
Jim Clemmer's free e-newsletter. For over 25 years, Jim's 2,000+
practical leadership presentations and workshops/retreats, five
bestselling books, columns, and newsletters have been helping hundreds
of thousands of people worldwide. His web site is www.clemmer.net."
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| Why Aren't Common Sense Leadership Principles Common Practice? |
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A web site visitor from England sent me the following e-mail:
"I'm
astonished at how good basic common sense reads as a revelation; even
more confusing to me, is why it is so difficult for me to share such
good practice with managers who are operating with an altogether
'different' philosophy and getting it wrong!? I'm hoping your
publication will give me some ideas."
I
have wrestled with your question for a couple of decades now. I am
often baffled by why common sense leadership principles aren't common
practice. There is now a mountain of evidence showing that strong
leadership leads to healthier leaders and people being led, higher
team/organization performance, elevated job/life satisfaction, greater
happiness, and so on.
The reasons
that basically good people are often bad leaders are numerous and
complex. The two central ones that I keep coming back to are confusing
management and leadership, and knowing with doing.
The balancing of management and leadership (and technical/technology) are foundation components of my work (The Leader's Digest and its Practical Application Planner are built on this base) and The CLEMMER Group's services. Here are a few articles on our web site that may be helpful:
Balancing Technology, Management, and Leadership
In
top performing organizations, each area of the "Performance Balance
Triangle" is strong and constantly improving, allowing technology,
systems, and processes to serve people.
Managing Things, Leading People
To manage is to control, handle or manipulate. To lead is to guide, influence or persuade.
Management vs. Leadership
One
key distinction between management and leadership is that we manage
things and lead people. When dealing with things, we talk about a way
of doing. In the people realm, we're talking about a way of being.
Stop Managing and Start Leading
Truly good corporate leaders know how to remove barriers between themselves and their staff.
There are even more articles on this topic area at www.clemmer.net/excerpts/m_leadership.shtml.
The
problem of knowing versus doing is a complex one. It seems to be
especially hard for us to recognize when we've fallen into this trap.
Variations on the theme are mixing up strategy or planning with
implementation or confusing content and process. Many managers spend a
lot of time and brain power developing a plan/budget/strategy and when
it's done try to be like Jean Luc Picard on the Starship Enterprise and
get someone else to "make it so." Rarely does that happen.
The
discipline of execution or implementation is sorely lacking in many
organizations. Managers are so busy cooking up more plans or handling
today's crisis that they rarely follow through and follow up. At a
personal level, managers often confuse learning theories (knowing) with
developing skills or habits (doing). Because they know, they think they
automatically do. Our academic system, bestseller lists, and consulting
firms add to the confusion.
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| Reader Perspectives on Upward Leadership |
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I
received the following e-mail from a reader. Since he's still with the
company that he's referring to, he asked to remain anonymous.
"Just a quick note to say how much your article in The Globe & Mail today
brought back memories. We were going to get T-shirts printed up with
M.W.D. Managing with Dinosaurs with the one manager we had - ideally
with a graphic artist to do a conference table with a T-Rex at the one
end. One of those projects that never got done....Generated a few
laughs."
I'd love to get your perspectives and experiences on upward leadership. Send me your thoughts at [email protected].
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| Becoming a Professional Speaker |
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I
get many inquiries from people who would like to become a speaker,
workshop leader, or consultant. Here's a typical inquiry and my
response:
"My personal dream is to be a motivational speaker..... do you have anything on that for me to work toward?"
I
am often at a loss to provide useful generalized advice on how to be a
professional speaker. This profession is very broad and diverse with as
many pathways into the business as there are people doing it. Most
people looking to become a professional speaker are surprised at how
much work and time it takes to become established and fulfill their
dreams.
The Arizona-based National
Speakers Association (NSA) has found there are eight competencies
needed to make a successful career in this business. These are:
- Professional Awareness
- Professional Relationships
- Topic Development
- Platform Mechanics
- Presenting And Performing
- Authorship And Product Development
- Sales And Marketing
- Managing The Business
You can learn more about these competencies and the speaking business at www.nsaspeaker.org.
Whenever
anyone asks me a question like yours, I recommend he or she join the
Canadian Association of Professional Speakers (CAPS) in Canada, the
National Speakers Association in the United States, or the
International Federation for Professional Speakers in other countries.
Members are made up of people learning about and wanting to get into
the business, people getting established in the business (who may be
doing it part time or on a semi-retired basis), and those who have been
earning a good living as full time professional speakers for many
years. This latter group can most quickly be identified through their
Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) designation.
If
you're serious about wanting to become a motivational speaker I would
highly recommend you attend the CAPS annual conference. You'll meet 400
members and have a plethora of educational workshops, motivational
speeches, and network opportunities. It's always the first Thursday
evening, Friday, and Saturday in December. This year it's in
Ottawa-Gatineau. Check all this out at www.canadianspeakers.org. The NSA conference is in July each year. It's in Orlando, Florida July 22, 2006 - July 25, 2006.
Hope that helps.
Jim
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| Reader Feedback on Growing the Distance Two Years in the Making |
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Jim,
I just finished reading your book, Growing the Distance.
It sat on my desk for two years and I didn't pick it up. I am currently
taking a certificate course through the University of Regina in Health
Leadership and am working on a project we titled, How to Grow Leaders.
Finally, I read the book. It was a wonderful journey and has helped me
to finally apply some of my learnings to the issues in my own nursing
units (I am a nurse manager for 2 very busy surgical units). Something
in your book about knowing all the things to do but needing the courage
to actually do them...thanks for giving me the courage to make a
difference.
- Deb Kosabek, Nurse Manager, Regina Quappelle Health Region
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| Top Improvement Points from August |
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| Feedback and Follow-Up |
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I am always delighted to hear from readers of the Leader Letter with feedback, reflections, suggestions, or differing points of view. Nobody is ever identified in the Leader Letter without their permission.
I
am also happy to explore customized, in-house adaptations of any of my
material for your team or organization. Drop me an e-mail at [email protected].
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Keep learning, laughing, loving, and leading -- living life just for the L of it!
Jim
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post or pass this newsletter on to colleagues, clients, or associates
you think might be interested. If you received this newsletter from
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| Copyright 2005, Jim Clemmer, The CLEMMER Group |
