Stop Training Your Managers,
Start Developing Your Leaders
First things, first, lets define leadership. For Predaptive Leadership is
where an organisation motivates its key stakeholders to move
to new places. Places that are sometimes exciting, scary,
uncomfortable, challenging and different. What all these new
places have in common however, is that they require Leadership to make the case, to create the mandate for change and show
how the journey can be accomplished.
Predaptive has some very straightforward views of
Leadership:
- Leadership is not about seniority. All roles should have
leadership expectations embedded within them
- Leadership can be developed by making the behaviours
required to be a leader relevant and correctly scaled for
the role being modelled
- Leadership is about ownership, when people own issues
that face them or the organisation, they begin the process
of taking part in finding solutions or designing action
plans
- Widespread leadership behaviour reduces management time
needed for checking, controlling, expediting, telling and
generally coping
- People love being leaders, although many hated the idea
when first put to them.
So where does the 21st century manager fit in?
The traditional preserve of managers is being eaten away far
quicker than many organisations and individuals can respond.
Where managers used to be employed to control the flow of
information both up and down the organisation, the speed and
volume of information transfer provided by the internet, your
intranet and internal MI systems has obliterated that role.
What about the impact Generation X’ers and Nexters are having?
For Generation X’ers the big idea is
about personal stuff, work life balance in their favour. Their
prime motivation is about self fulfilment. Nexters (sometimes
also called millennial and born 80s early nineties) see their
big idea as being about the planet with work being seen as
part of an holistic system of connections and integrated
behaviours. Their prime motivation is about big themes
connecting to work/personal experiences. Both these sets of
people are changing the traditional view and ways of
management. They have no appetite to automatically defer to
the assumed wisdom and experience of their ‘elders’. Respect
needs to be hard earned every single day. Many managers often
find themselves bemused, managing people who earn more than
them and whose jobs they struggle to understand let alone
fulfil. When a person finds themselves in a position like that
the instinct is to survive, not create.
The choices are simple, get out of the way or act as an
enabler, not the fat controller. What people look for from
‘managers’ now is Leadership in the face of ambiguity,
direction and the real ability to create a culture of coaching
and innovation. Sadly that’s not what the majority of
‘management training’ offerings bring to the party.
How can we develop the 21st Century Manager?
The response from training and development departments to this
question is often to offer a solid management development programme covering the ‘essentials’ of motivation theory, time
management, negotiation and delegation, supported by a day on
leadership skills. It’s worked before, and it’s easy to
specify and buy.
However, too many managers have been through the management
training treadmill just one time too many - happy to partake
in ‘the cave rescue exercise’ again, safe in the knowledge
that there will be a mid morning break where they can catch up
on some ‘real work’ before rejoining each session a little
late. Worse still they may simply be focussed on finding time
to enjoy a little golf or the spa at the training venue. That
doesn’t deliver value to their organisations, it doesn’t
inspire or motivate them and it is all quickly forgotten back
in the workplace when the reality of relentlessness bites.
Standard management development courses may give managers time
away to reflect, but leave the organisation with little more
than the invoices and ‘happy sheets’. Nothing changes because
nothing was expected to change and nobody really minds anyway.
Predaptive can help you to get more out of your people through
developing a real leadership cadre, which may take less out of
your management training budget than you might think!
The method by which we unlock this leadership potential is
through 4SLeadership™:
(Roll over the image for further information)
By utilising 4SLeadership we will help develop the
leadership potential within your business.
From This:
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We have some who are great people managers,
some who really deliver results, but few who do both |
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Our people are great in the day to day
but don’t seem capable of communicating and contributing
to our vision |
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Our management development consists
simply of a suite of training programmes |
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Our organisation lacks creativity |
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We’re great at finding solutions to
problems but not so great at minimising the risk before
it occurs |
To This:
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Recognising the real leadership
potential within your organisation and being able to
build on it |
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Creating a vocabulary of leadership |
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Recognising and nurturing the leadership
behaviours which your organisation needs now and in the
future |
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Creating a level of ownership and
commitment across all levels of your business |
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Reducing the demand on managers to be
continually checking, controlling, expediting, telling
and generally coping. |
To look at what you need from your leadership population in
the future, and to design your development a different way
talk to us about Predaptive Academies, PRE4M™ and
4SLeadership™.
Lynn Joy
T: +44 (0)1789 734333
E: lynnj@predaptive.com
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Click here if you would like us to telephone you to talk through your needs. |
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