Looking for Leadership In a World of Managers

Usually when the question “what’s the difference between leadership and management?” comes up I answer with “management gets you through today; leadership gets you to tomorrow.” (I’ve been using the line for so long that I’ve forgotten who I probably borrowed it from.) The point being that the skills and mind-set needed to effectively complete short term tasks are not necessarily the same ones needed to insure a successful future. Unfortunately, when I look at the problems we are facing today I see a lot of management but not too much leadership.

Wall Street rewards companies not for creating a long-term business models but for meeting quarterly “numbers” often based on rapid and unsustainable growth. Consequently, corporations worry more about acquiring other companies than on developing their own core businesses. The result: Can anyone say “too big to fail”?

The long term effects of outsourcing are ignored in favor of increased sales and profits based on lower costs. (My favorite example is the town in Alabama that lost all of its fabric mills because socks could be produced cheaper overseas – 1 cent per sock less!) And if it means that we now have to compete with the economies of China and India for oil and other raw materials, or that we really don’t manufacture much anymore, so what, look at how many more cool things we can afford to buy. And besides, the housing market is sustaining the economy, right?

Both major political parties have done such a good job of dividing the country over the last three decades that it’s now common to have polls on major issues (and elections) show 51% to 49% results. And it’s no longer enough to disagree with the other side; you now have to justify the superiority of your position by painting theirs as being immoral, uncaring, stupid, or unpatriotic. And in the long run, it really doesn’t seem to matter that much because the “leaders” produced by those parties appear to be more concerned with the next election cycle than making hard (i.e.: potentially unpopular) decisions.

And holding it all together, the media that focus’s almost exclusively on ratings share than on what the long term effects of their coverage are. Any mistake a leader may make becomes fodder for the 24 hour news cycle.

So what do we do? How about rewarding business that take a long-range and steady approach to growth? And what would happen if we started to vote for politicians who emphasize what we have in common and actually tell us what we need to hear, not what they think we want to hear. Ultimately we get the leadership we demand, but until we exercise the power that comes with both the vote and the pocketbook we will continue to “lead” by a nation of managers.

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