They Teach Leadership in Business School - Don't They?

Way back at the start of this blog I defined Leadership for anyone who might actually be reading it out there. For the record, no one actually complained about that post, and I later wrote another one about a manager I worked for once who appeared to have no grasp of leadership whatsoever, but was otherwise competent. Reaction to that story was a bit less subdued; I've had more than one person tell me that if a manager's duties include supervision of other personnel, then failing to lead them is as miserable a dereliction of duty as any other.

Part of the problem is that not enough of the people serving in management roles have ever received any formal training in management, and fewer still have studied the arcane art of leadership. The sad fact is that most business school programs do not emphasize managerial skills (e.g. MBA majors in Finance, Marketing, Information Technology, Economics, and so on), and even those students who major in Management will spent less than half of their time learning about this discipline -- and almost no time learning how to lead people. Too many experts in the field continue to underestimate the importance of leadership, simply because they feel that it's merely an "art" with no set rules or factors that can be quantified and mathematically modeled.

This is not quite true, however...

Leadership can be graphed as the compromise or balance between two competing drives: the need to be liked, and the need to accomplish work. A leader's style (and to some extent effectiveness) depends greatly on the balance struck between these two imperatives; so does their approach to conflict resolution. For example, a manager who places very little importance on either the effectiveness of his/her work group or on how well his subordinates like him is often called a "turtle" because of his or her habit of resolving conflicts by going into his or her office and pretending he or she isn't there. A manager who is committed to high performance but does not care about being liked (or even tolerated) by the workers will sometimes be called a "shark," while someone with the opposite priorities (obsessed with being liked to the extent of ignoring performance) will usually be called a "teddy bear."

A leader who attempts to maximize both concerns is usually called an "owl," although this term has drifted a bit from its original meaning. The name was originally applied because of the folklore that owls are highly intelligent (and would therefore be concerned with maximizing anything that can be maximized), but in recent times these people are called "owls" because you'll never see one (e.g. they work much too hard). The leader who instead finds the perfect balance between these two concerns is usually called a "fox" (in the sense of being clever or sly, not crazy).

It should probably be noted that none of these leadership types is necessarily better than the others, although the fox is probably the most often successful. I've worked for sharks, and generally have no problem with them; they are results-oriented people who don't care if you like them or not, so long as you do your job well. Teddy bears can be hard to work with, since they will generally let everything else slide while they try to be everyone's friend, but in an industry where customer relations are critical (e.g. almost any service-sector company) they can be quite useful in the right role. I like working with owls (everyone does), although I've seen too many of them burn out much too young from working too hard. Even the humble turtle can be effective, if the work group can manage itself while the turtle gets out of the way and lets everyone else get on with things.

As you approach your own leadership challenges, you may want to consider what sort of animal you are -- and how that might be affecting your style (and your workgroup). If you're a shark, try to have a bit more consideration for people's feelings, and if you're a teddy bear, keep in mind that there's nothing wrong with asking people to actually do the work you're paying them to do. If you're a turtle, try coming out of your shell a little more often -- maybe there's a fox around who can help you to be a bit more effective. And if you're an owl please, for the sake of whatever's actually holy, GET SOME SLEEP ONCE IN A WHILE!