Recently, I have come face to face with the ugliness of management and abuse of power. Leadership and Management is a topic I find fascinating because I have received a lot of training in the area and read so many case studies on the topic- not just in the military but also through my training in the Reserves. I think it is a fascinating area because leadership seems to be an innate trait – either a person has it or they do not. I am not sure Management falls in the same category because there is a stark contrast between a leader and manager. While a manager can certainly aspire to be a leader and work on those attributes, and a leader can have managerial ability, it is tough for all managers to be leaders. I read the book, Lincoln on Leadership during my Squadron Officer School (SOS) training and it was fascinating to me. If I get to attend Air War College, I am sure I will learn more about what makes a true leader.
Leadership is often described as an art. In the past year at work, I have learned that sometimes people who are appointed to lead or manage can do neither successfully. I wonder if it is because that individual does not take the time to mold his personality or work on character traits or is it more inane? Could it be that leaders are born and that no matter how much rote training one receives, he or she cannot be a true leader or emulate the traits required for a good leader? It is neat to have the opportunity to put into practice what I have studied since 1998 with the military. I have seen some poor “leaders” in my time but I never had a chance to view poor managers as well. I think they are rampant in the corporate world as well as Government but it seems that poor managers thrive more in Government practice because of the lack of accountability. A perfect example is- in the military, even the worst manager was accountable to authority and to the people he commanded. Here, in the federal civil service, it seems that some higher-ups think they are above the law and worse, not accountable to anyone.
In a recent case of incompetence, my “manager” has decided he wants every professional in the office to account for every minute of absence from the building in a time log (electronic sign-in and sign-out board) while he has exempted himself from these same requirements. A good leader and a decent manager would allow access to a calendar with his whereabouts hoping that his people will follow his lead and integrity. A great leader would not even have to institute such a policy which is what would make him great in the first place- the people who followed him would emulate his ethics and in return, work hard because he trusted them and treated them as professionals. A poor manager, on the other hand, is doing exactly what everyone can predict- not be accountable for his actions, however illegal. For example, my poor manager is out of the office today and no one knows where he is. No time log or electronic log can tell us what he’s really doing but we all just know.
Leaders can be made but it takes a lot of work on the individual’s part to fit the bill, good managers can become even better through training, but poor “managers” who do not care can be a plague to the organization they are appointed to run --- without leadership, the structure and hierarchy will fail and like in some countries where this has occurred, a coup is the final step before anarchy.
