Leadership Tips for the New Manager

There's a saying I like that goes "Be the person your dog thinks you are." I hope it's not copyrighted, because I have no idea where it came from. I heard it someplace and I assume it's in the public domain. But it's not just a cute and poster-worthy slogan. I find it wise and pithy, or what an eggheaded academic would call "parsimonious." It says a lot about the subject of leadership in a minimum number of words.

There's another saying that goes "leaders are born, not made." It summarizes what is perhaps the oldest "theory" about leadership. It suggests that leadership is an inherent characteristic, part of the "art" side of management, something you can't teach but that can only be brought out of a person through first-hand experience, honing what might have been learned while growing up or in a person's latent personality.

Well, if leadership can only be learned through experience and cannot be taught per se, why are the stores and libraries and websites full of books and articles on leadership, promoting the secrets of famous leaders from Attila the Hun to Zorba the Greek? (That's "a" to "z" in case you didn't notice.) Why are there countless training seminars and college courses that address the subject? Are we just fascinated in studying leadership in a descriptive sense, or is the point to learn about leadership in a prescriptive sense? In other words, can we come to know what leadership behaviors are, and copy those behaviors in the hope that we can become better leaders through practice?

After countless rigorous studies of leadership, the answer seems to be a resounding "yes and no." Leadership, as the focus of management research, has turned out to be one of the messiest areas of theory, considering all the time and effort put into it after so many years by so many well-meaning people.

But a few broad patterns seem pretty conclusive. In the first place, the "leaders are born, not made" idea, or what management books call "Trait Theories" of leadership, continues to lose strength as we learn more and more. I suppose that if charisma is an essential ingredient to leadership, which seems to be the case in some kinds of settings at least, then almost by the definition of the word charisma, that part can't be taught. There are lots and lots of examples of leaders who were successful based on little more than their magnetic personalities and powers of oration. Leaders of nations, CEOs of huge corporations, wartime generals, and founders of grassroots movements of social revolutions often rely on charisma first and foremost. But is that what we're talking about here?

No. Forget the books about how to lead revolutions, military campaigns, and corporate turnarounds. If you are a new manager in an organized setting, which is the assumption behind this series of essays, then charisma is not, by far, the only thing you will need to be an effective leader. The more charisma the better, I suppose, but it is not sufficient. There are other loci of the "power of persuasion" that you should understand and practice at lower levels of management.

First, relatively new managers at low levels of management still seem to rely on technical skill. Let's face it, if you just got promoted to management it's probably because you were about the best at what you did as a non-manager, and that has become recognized in the form of your promotion. Your people will look to you as the "go-to-guy" for resolving their day-to-day technical impasses - especially the new people. So lose the Attila the Hun attitude. Be a teacher and coach. For example, never, ever, do something that makes a subordinate feel worse about asking for your guidance on technical matters. Teaching and coaching skills can be learned along with the technical skills that got you where you find yourself now.

Second, with your promotion comes what is called "legitimate authority." This is a really interesting concept if you stop to think about it. Legitimate authority is the right to tell someone what to do. Where does this "right" come from? It certainly isn't one of your "inalienable" rights, it's temporary and a privilege you should respect. It comes with the position, and is one of the cornerstones of the theory of Bureaucracy started by the German sociologist Max Weber more than a hundred years ago. Weber, in observing that the industrial era was going to be totally different than the feudal, agrarian and mercantilist eras that preceded it, felt that a new basis of organized power was needed -- the invented and ultimately artificial power in the office one holds. The German word for office is bureau, hence this new form of power became the essence of bureaucracy - a much maligned term that will be addressed in a future essay more thoroughly.

The point for now is that your power to be the boss is backed by the legitimacy of the organization itself, but this power resides in the office, not you the person. Do respect that. Your subordinates are not following you so much as they understand the power of your position. It doesn't really matter who's the boss, the boss represents the organization. Bosses come and go. If the organization didn't exist, your authority wouldn't exist, and your subordinates would recognize no legitimacy in your attempts at being the boss. Be a little humble about that.

Third, and perhaps a derivative of the power of legitimate authority, is the power to either reward or punish your subordinates. Reward and punishment smack of an important theory of motivation, which I will address in a future essay. Obviously, leadership and motivation are highly related. For now, I will assume that you really don't yet have the power to do things like give raises, as an obvious example of a reward, or formally reprimand someone, as an example of punishment. As a new manager, however, you should understand that very much of what you do is either rewarding or punitive in a subconscious or subliminal sense. For example, making someone regret being honest is punishing and once done, you can pretty much never count on that person being honest with you again. In contrast, praising someone for the courage to do the right thing if it means breaking a stupid rule just once for the sake of the customer, will develop much loyalty.

People, not unlike animals, are highly malleable to their environment of rewards and punishments that you can learn and create. This is very, very powerful stuff. Be the boss your dog thinks you are.