Category Archives: Leadership

I have always been interested in this subject – leadership – which is about managing people. The most satisfying periods in my life have been when I have been placed in a position of trust and been allowed, encouraged even, to exercise this skill.

Leadership

How to NOT mismanage your managers

This is a subject close to my heart and when I found this article in the newspaper in 1980 it immediately appealed to me. It comprehensively addresses many of the problems around Management and Leadership.

I intend coming back to it from time to time to expand on some of the points made and perhaps add the odd anecdote.

How not to mismanage your managers – (this is the original headline)(By Stephen Orpen in the Sunday Times, Business Times, September 14, 1980)

PERHAPS, UNCONSCIOUSLY, YOU ARE DOING THINGS CERTAIN TO UNDERMINE YOUR MANAGERS AND YOUR COMPANY. HERE ARE KEY STEPS TO HELP YOU AVOID THE DANGERS.

Good managers are hard to find, hard to develop and hard to keep. The modern manager sits at the centre of the maelstrom. His desk is the final destination of the briskly passing buck.
He has his job cut out just trying to keep track of what’s happening and trying to control it. Conditions that once could be relied on to remain substantially unchanged for ten years are now often transformed beyond recognition in ten months.
Every day, he is given the unwelcome opportunity of becoming an industrial hero by making decisions fraught with personal risk and responsibility.
To do all this, to enjoy doing it and to do it well requires special qualities such as courage, kindness, intelligence, judgement, nervous stability, optimism, patience, drive, perseverance, the constitution of an ox and a marked degree of masochism.
There have never been a great number of people with these qualities – and one can safely assume the shortage will continue. Consequently, it is useful to ask: “How do I make the most of what I’ve got?”
Managers have two functions: (a) to make decisions, and (b) to control people.
To make decisions, they need judgement and confidence.
The ability to make decisions is like a muscle. It develops best with regular exercise that is steadily increased. The earlier the exercise begins, the more impressive the results.
To control people, managers need both respect and self-respect. Self-respect develops from knowing what one has personally contributed to the job.
Respect is won when other people know it too. Responsibility and recognition are, therefore, the prime prerequisites of the effective manager.
You need good managers if you are going to run, not ruin, your business. Yet often the bosses who think they are most aware of this unconsciously do things that are certain to undermine their managers.
Here are some of the easiest ways to mismanage a manager:

(1)          Make him responsible for too little and force him to justify his existence at every turn.
(2)          Make him responsible for too much so he’s forever apologising for everything he’s left undone.
(3)          Never define his responsibilities. Then he can get all the blame when things go wrong and none of the praise when they turn out right.
(4)          Make him responsible without giving him authority. Put him in charge of operations over which he has no budgetary or disciplinary control. Don’t give him the power to hire staff to get the work done, nor to fire staff whose incompetence impedes progress.
(5)          Set unrealistic targets for his achievement. Now that you’ve cut the promotion budget and introduced a hefty price increase and your competitors have just launched a better product, tell your sales manager that you expect him to increase your market share by 10%/ this is guaranteed to improve his sales incentive – in selling his services elsewhere!
(6)          Assume that everything is always his fault. Call him in, look at him accusingly and treat his every remark as a damaging admission. He’ll soon be defending himself before he even discovers what he’s guilty of. Then point out, more in anger than in sorrow, that “who excuses himself accuses himself”.
(7)           Be intolerant when it really is his fault. Our own shortcomings are lovable idiosyncrasies. Those of others are intolerable incompetency. Forget that the more a manager does for you, the more he runs the risk of making a mistake.
(8)          Set out to KEEP HIM ON HIS TOES. The standard way to do this is to ask questions about trivial details at unexpected and inopportune moments. When management experts say that every manager has large areas of ignorance; that he can’t and shouldn’t know everything; that he must save time by knowing only what it is necessary for him to know so long as he knows where to find out the rest; in your mind they’re clearly talking about you, not the managers who report to you.
(9)          Give unsought assistance. Treat managers as if they were personal assistants. Mould them into extensions of yourself. Don’t stop at telling them what is to be done, give them a detailed description of how it is to be done. This destroys a manager’s capacity to think and act for himself, inhibits his learning processes and produces worse results than he could have achieved unaided.
(10)        When he does seek help, make sure he doesn’t like the help he gets. This discourages him from taking up your time – and from doing anything else. One way to close down communications is to SOLVE some problem that has worried him for weeks in five minutes OFF THE TOP OF YOUR HEAD and wave him out with a benign smile. He now has two worries instead of one – a problem he can’t solve and a solution he can’t use.
(11)        Start doing his job for him. Brief him on a task that will involve tricky conversations with difficult people. Ring them all up just to tell them:
                “I’ve asked Joe to talk to you about so and so”. Then, when he gets round to them, they can tell him, “It’s already taken care of with the boss”. This not only makes him feel useless but it makes him look useless to the people he’s supposed to manage.
(12)        Keep checking up on him. Once he learns that you never seriously expect him to get anything done on his own, he’ll give you exactly what you expect: nothing new and nothing original.
(13)        Have cosy chats with his staff about him. This will prove that it’s better to be popular than productive. Encourage him to forego all pretence of managing and spend his time in currying favour with his staff in the hope that a few of the kindly ones will put in a good word for him with you.
(14)        Let him tell the bad news – give the good news yourself. Let each manager handle matters of firing, retiring, lateral promotions, demotions, inquisitions and admonitions. You hand out raises, promotions, bonuses and general bonhomie. Tell the managers after you have told the recipients, so that the staff will do anything for you and nothing for your supposedly chosen representatives.
(15)        Criticise a manager in front of his staff. Or, better still, ridicule him. This will show everyone that you have a sense of humour, or alternatively that you don’t mind employing buffoons. It will also give you a chance later to complain with perfect truth that all your managers are pretty useless at getting things done and that all the drive has to come from you.
(16)        Have too many levels of sub-managers. That’s how to get an organisation where everybody’s an architect and nobody lays bricks, within an atmosphere of real management democracy where everybody feels he’s as good as everybody else and spends all his time proving it.
(17)        Re-organise your managers often. Do enough of it and you’ll defeat even the most devoted apostle of order.  As your managers ROLL WITH THE PUNCHES the whole business will roll with them.
(18)        Divide and rule. If they’re worrying about blocking each other’s advancement, they’re not worrying you – nor worrying about your business.

Perhaps you are not guilty of any of these mistakes in handling your managers. But if any of them thinks you are, the effects may be just as harmful.
In any case, you’ve doubtless observed some of these shortcomings in other executives. Plain truth is the boss who allows himself to indulge in these entirely human failings, even briefly, can expect certain consequences. Some managers will turn into those pale creatures who approach you in terror and leave you with relief.
Others will become lackeys who mouth their approval before you’ve finished telling them what to approve of. Others will turn sour and silent. Others will give up the struggle altogether and go elsewhere.
Management without misery
Once you have accepted what NOT to do, the rules for success are very simple.
First, remind yourself that there are necessary limits to what the boss should do himself. The final responsibility for four main tasks must always rest with him. These are:

  1. To assemble the right managerial group,
  2. To organise the group properly,
  3. To set the right goals for it,
  4. To see that it stays on course and moves at the optimum speed.

Coping with these four crucial areas is labour enough for any man. If they’re done properly, the boss won’t need to spread his influence any further.
If they are not done properly, he won’t be able to spread his influence further, save in a totally destructive way.
The only real trouble with managers arises when, having failed to do his own task, the boss sets out to do theirs for them.
Concentrate on telling your managers what to do, not how to do it. Then trust them. Be approachable. Let them feel free to seek your advice without regarding it as an admission of failure on their part.
If your managers do fail, be charitable. The first failure was yours. You picked them. Let them feel valued; otherwise they will tend to become valueless.
When, under this wise leadership, they grow in stature and begin to stand firmly on their own feet, resist the temptation to CUT THEM DOWN TO SIZE, unless the interests of the company are truly threatened by their arrogance.
Finally, if they presume to disagree with you, don’t react like a wounded buffalo. If they are not actually insolent, they are paying you the compliment of trusting you to be fair.
To disagree with the boss is always an act requiring courage. If it requires downright insanity, then sane men will seek a better boss in a saner company.

 

Leadership, Southern Africa

Demands and tragedy at Marikana

In 2013 an incident occurred at Marikana, a mine in the North West province of South Africa. There was much discussion of the matter (and still is for that matter) and left and right wing takes on it passed blame around like the proverbial hot potato. I was in the habit of writing to the press at the time and drafted my comments but various things, including the death of my wife at the time, intervened and the draft has languished on my computer.  My comments on tactics are based on my own training, reading and common sense.

I believe the Marikana matter has still not been properly resolved and probably never will be.

In my opinion the overweening power of the unions and the misinformation that they allow their members to be fed is largely to blame as is the poor handling of the operation by mostly untrained and inexperienced police. Of course the management of the mining house did not come out entirely squeaky-clean either. Altogether a debacle but here, for what it is worth, is my take on the matter as written in 2013…for those interested I suggest a web search for Marikana/Marikana killings and similar. (I have added one or two explanatory asides for the wider audience)

Firstly, long before we get to strikes and protests there is the matter of free choice in the job you choose to take.

Having looked for work and chosen to be a miner you knew what the remuneration was to be and you can’t, and should not be allowed to, suddenly demand that you want double pay.

When you took the job you knew the nature of your responsibilities in respect of family and home. It seems though, that if you are in a unionised environment where the union has overwhelming representation it is accepted that once you are in you can behave as you please. You can do just enough to avoid any serious sanction against yourself. You know that you are fire-proof in terms of current legislation that is so skewed towards labour that it loses sight of the requirements of good business practice.

It is in this environment that DEMANDS are born. Not reasoned requests or applications at appropriate times but savage demands backed up with brutalising behaviour.

Notwithstanding the above it appears that the employer in this case was clumsy in their handling of certain issues around pay. Furthermore, they, the mining house, should still shoulder the blame for not being sensitive to what is going on within its organisation and they should have been in a position to respond or even pre-empt the escalation of the matter. That they remained obdurate when the situation started to deteriorate and the first deaths occurred is shameful.

Before proceeding to my next point – journalists please note:

There were NO machine guns on site. There were semi-automatic rifles (probably in 5.56mm) and semi-automatic 9mm pistols – NO machine guns so learn the difference in the interests of accurate reporting.

As to the reaction of the police it appears that poor training and even poorer leadership – on the ground and all the way to the top – is to blame and not the men on the spot. Bear in mind that they had seen not only the bodies of two of their own men who had been killed and brutalised with pangas but also the bodies of similarly mutilated miners. These now fearful individuals may quite reasonably have felt: “If they could do that to their own people then what could any police member expect”.

Oh and why would the rioters attack fellow-miners? Perhaps those miners had tried to be reasonable – comment has been made that a moderate voice on that hillock would have got short shrift – or were they denounced by a sangoma (witch-doctor in common parlance)? Maybe an opportunity to take care of a grudge presented itself?

It appears that among the police were a fairly large number of poorly trained, nervous people concerned that what had happened to their colleagues might happen to them – bluntly these were armed, jittery men who were, in military slang, SHIT SCARED, without experience or appropriate training for the situation.

When, on film, I saw the miners burst out of the bush a moment before the police opened fire I got a fright – and I was only watching a film!

Notice that the FIRST reaction of a number of the police was to run AWAY from the oncoming charge. Only on hearing the firing of those who stood fast did they turn and add their fire to the fusillade. Well trained men do not run and certainly do not fire from BEHIND the firing line endangering their comrades. Press photos also appear to show some members ducking away behind their colleagues – or could that have been when the first shots came from the rioters – something one gets the distinct impression is being denied or suppressed?

A good riot control squad would firstly have had disciplined, trained and respected section leaders in control. NO-ONE would have opened fire without a clear instruction and that instruction does not seem to have been given on the evidence presented.

The first volley might have been birdshot, or similar, designed to hurt and break up the charge. And the sharp pain of such incapacitating ammunition would have dispelled any thoughts of muti protection actually working! (muti protection being some kind of charm – even an oil or ointment – given by the sangoma [witch-doctor] that the users are told – and which they believe – will make them immune to the bullets/weapons of the police – this practice and belief has been seen a lot among terrorists in Africa).

Only if the charge could not be broken should high velocity ammunition have been used and then it should have been controlled and aimed and not been a random volley of shots. Stop the leaders, break the charge. Of course the main instigators hang back and send a few fierce, ill-considered firebrands to lead the charge so it would be no surprise to learn that not one of the dead will be identified as a leader or instigator.

All the repeated cease fire calls also point to belated attempts to stop a panic reaction.

But I am on the side of the police here – the poor buggers who should have been properly trained and led. Well trained police and soldiers are not fearless but they are disciplined and work as a team. Through continuous training and discipline they learn to trust each other and their leaders and they understand the dynamics of situations because they were trained for them.

Furthermore, it is no good having a nucleus of a few well-trained individuals and padding it out with poorly trained and inexperienced members – there is going to be no trust and no cohesion.

Just giving the police military ranks was not going to magically endow them with the appropriate training or ability either.

Had the specialised paramilitary reaction units, trained for such situations, been maintained it may well have been a different matter. Even this is debatable with the decreasing standards that are evident everywhere.

Leadership, Military life

Leadership, Authority and Responsibility

These are qualities that can, to quite a large extent be taught to those with the correct attitude.

Responsibility is really the first and underlying quality – together with integrity. Anyone who wants or demands authority and is not prepared to accept the attendant responsibility is not fit to lead.

Many people do not appreciate that responsibility is a two-way street. A less senior person might be responsible to their superiors but their superiors have an equal and possibly more important responsibility for and to their employees or juniors.

In the military the responsibility is to see that men are prepared through training – both physical and in the area of skills in arms and in their specialties. Officers need to ensure that their men are prepared mentally and they need to learn to trust those men to carry out their duties.

The leader earns the men’s trust by showing that he trusts them and takes seriously his responsibility for them, at the same time being firm and impartial in matters of discipline and adherence to the army’s rules.

The men under the command of the officer or NCO learn to respect not only those qualities of fairness and firmness but also the person – not just the authority of the rank or position.

The good leader, already granted the authority with his rank or position, has taken the time to earn the respect of those under his command without throwing his weight around or allowing anyone else to do so. He does not have to demand the men’s obedience or respect. The loyalty he has shown to those men has in its turn, earned their loyalty. They will behave and carry out their assigned work responsibly and be accountable for their performance. They will be a team.

A leader displays loyalty to staff in several ways. He ensures that they know and understand what is required of them. When they make a mistake he takes the time to establish what happened and why. He does not allow others to attack his people. He will stop such attacks and will sort out matters of discipline, training or other problems, internally.

If censure is required, he will ensure that it is administered firmly and fairly and he will do it himself. He will not abdicate this unpleasant task nor will he allow his superiors or peers to attack and demean his staff or censure them even if it is deserved. He will stop such moves and be responsible for sorting out the problem and, if needed, report his resolution of the problem to his own superiors. He will be RESPONSIBLE.

He does not allow his staff to be embarrassed in front of their peers, their seniors nor, and most importantly, in front of any junior staff.

The leader is firstly an individual who accepts authority knowing that with it goes great responsibility. Learning to handle all those things and thriving in a supportive environment some people become good supervisors and managers. Some among them become leaders and some become really good leaders.

All these things only happen in an environment that is conducive to such a culture. In order to function efficiently the military must have a responsible leadership culture. It is why they train and train and re-train their members. Those that have the aptitude will work their way up the ladder. Some individuals will find a level that suits their abilities while others will remain among the rank and file. Systems are not infallible and from time to time talent will be overlooked and fall through the cracks but, for the most part, it is a system that works.

The military systems are built on training and excellence but the driving force is not commercial. Rather it is a strange mix of loyalty, camaraderie, discipline and pride – a hard to define esprit-de-corps.

Many of those in charge of large civilian/commercial enterprises are heard paying lip service to training and developing leaders. With the main driver being the bottom line it becomes easy to lose sight of the people who make it all work. How often is the phrase “Our people are our most vital asset” heard by surprised staff who would swear it was not so.

Brash, commercially successful individuals are often promoted to management positions over really competent people. Such people will frequently be insensitive to others and, when in charge, become a bully. This is tacitly allowed because of the person’s success rate. No one notices the decline in morale and performance and perceived shortcomings are simply punished.

Staff reporting to such managers may become afraid and anxious and, not wanting to lose their jobs, they scramble to please, to be seen as acquiescent and helpful. The fact that productivity slips, errors occur and inefficiencies creep in is lost in the clamour.

It is often acknowledged that the best sportsman in any particular discipline will not necessarily be the best captain, coach or manager. So it is with management and leadership.

That rather loud individual who can sell lots of anything, or fix anything or excel in many other ways, should be allowed and encouraged to follow his core competency. He should be made to realise, through discussion or even blatant flattery, that he is hugely important to the company. Emphasise that a manager and support staff are in place to help him continue his successful career. He needs to see it as removing obstacles to his success, such as the need to be in the office and being responsible for the performance and success of others when he is much better at being successful HIMSELF.

Train the people with the right skills in responsibility and the exercise of authority. There is always a need for individuals with these competencies. The good ones will thrive and become supervisors, managers and leaders according to their abilities.

A person who is willing to accept responsibility and at the same time behave with integrity is a rare person indeed and all too often is not recognised by the very people who need them – business bosses. Business LEADERS however will recognise the need and ensure such people are not only hired but supported and encouraged in every way.

Responsible people take things seriously and tend not to let others down. They are thorough and hard-working and usually bright and intelligent. Frequently these people are creative and love to contribute but are seldom, if ever, encouraged and their voices are lost in the noise around big sales, big conferences, big ideas – and big egos.

People who WANT to be IN CHARGE and who, if promoted, take every opportunity to tell anyone who will listen how important they are should be kept under strict control and never be allowed much, if any, authority over staff. Selfishly they do not want to be responsible for anything but themselves and what is theirs which is what makes that kind of person a great salesman and marketer and even a tradesman but, more often than not, a poor manager of people.

Leadership, Military life

Leadership – an opportunity

Quite some time ago I was asked to write a short resume about my personal experience of managing people, of leadership. I wrote the genesis of this article in about 2012 and it was forgotten among my files.

Crest and cap badge of RhACR

In 1975 I had completed a ten-year contract in the Rhodesian Army Corps of Signals and in 1976 after a short spell in the BSA Police I transferred back to the Army and the Corps of Signals. I was reinstated in my rank of Staff Sergeant and immediately posted to the Rhodesian Armoured Car Regiment Signals Troop (T Troop RhACR) as 2i/c and Regimental Signals Instructor.

After a while our Captain was posted out and we were left without a Troop Commander after which I was appointed to act in that post.

The troop had only about three or four regular army members – myself and a couple of corporals and signalmen (privates). Most of the troop complement were territorials, called up for from 6 – 8 weeks at a time.

I soon found that for the regular men to try to do all the training and maintenance was going to benefit no-one. Not the regiment, the troop or the army. By stretching ourselves so thinly we could not do justice to the service required of the troop.

Up to that time it had been almost traditional in the army that territorial and national service soldiers were treated as a kind of readily available “servant” corps to take the pressure of guard and radio duties and other kinds of menial tasks, off the rest of the unit to which they were posted.

Resentment at this offhand treatment was all too evident. People felt that their training, skills and abilities were ignored by the army and that they could have been contributing more to the economy in civvy street. It would have been easy to dismiss this in a superior way – this is not civvy street, you territorials have to do this and do as you are told.

That would have been counterproductive. These intelligent men who had responsible positions in their civilian occupations were actually insulted by our treatment of them. After all, why had we trained them and why did we pay them to be there if we were not going to use the assets we had created in the most productive way possible.

I was mindful of my mandate to provide training and maintenance on the radio communications elements of the regiment. In order to do this, I needed my men to buy into my vision and step forward with their own contributions.

After investigating the background of the territorial members I found many of them had shown aptitude for, and been trained as, instructors but this training was being ignored. I then interviewed these men – among others with other skills – as they came for their call-ups. I asked them if they wanted to do more, to do what they had been specially trained for.

The initial reaction was that they wanted to be more involved but that they would not be allowed to do this work. The “established routine” would not permit it.

I assured them that they would have the full support of the Regiment and the Corps of Signals and that they would now be required to take on more of the training and day to day aspects of the troop while on call-up. The instructors would be running the courses and grading the trainees and their call-ups would be timed to start shortly before a training period. This would enable them to prepare for the course, run it and have a period of wind down and analysis.

With some trepidation but with great enthusiasm they got stuck in – and dramatically improved our effectiveness.

I kept a close eye on the work at first but soon realised – and told anyone who would listen – that great things were being achieved. Everyone learned about our miniature revolution – which it was.

In a relatively short time the accolades started to come in. I was able to successfully put people forward for promotions and this further bolstered confidence.

Now, when they arrived for call-ups, although they would rather not have been there, these men were no longer long-faced and round-shouldered. They were proud and purposeful, filled with the WE ethos. We are good at what we do; we are the best. We have an important role.

By encouraging and empowering these men, in the face of established, contrary mind-sets, these non-professional soldiers became a valuable asset to the unit and the light being shone on them reflected on me, my troop and on my corps. That, truly, is what win-win is all about.

Leadership, Military life

Leadership – early influences

I joined the Rhodesian regular army in March 1965 straight out of National Service during which time I had attended a course at the School of Signals. My excellent results led to my attestation into the Corps of Signals.

I continued as a signalman (private soldier) for perhaps two years because I still had to complete a REGULAR signals course to qualify for trade pay and be in line for promotion.

During this time, I performed all the duties of a fully qualified operator – minus the trade pay.  Bummer!

I was fortunate as a young soldier to have served with some really good, conscientious young officers who took their leadership role seriously. They were interested in their men and would teach them about the responsibilities that may come as one’s army career progressed.

One such Officer Commanding (OC) was Lt Kim Christiansen who was OC K Troop at HQ 2 Brigade (years before the Signal Squadrons were formed).

Before the days of camouflage

On one brigade training exercise  I – still a signalman – had been given the status of detachment commander. My radio crew consisted of four soldiers, a land rover and trailer kitted out with radios, battery charging and personal kit and the task of maintaining 24-hour communications. Immediately after pulling into the brigade area and siting my vehicle I walked off to the mess – leaving the men (they had done this before after all?), to sort out the kit.

Very shortly afterwards my OC came looking for me and called me out of the other ranks mess and asked me several questions:

  • Do your men know where to sleep?
  • Do they have a duty roster?
  • Have the antennas been calculated and sited correctly?
  • Has the camouflage been done correctly?
  • Do they know their stand-to positions?
  • Do they know where to go for food? For ablutions? For toilet facilities?

My youthful reply was that they had done this before so why the fuss?

Lieutenant Christensen then firmly pointed out to me that if I aspired to be in charge I needed to understand that leadership and management had responsibilities. If I wanted respect I had to earn it and it fell to me to look out for the men and set an example in every way. While he was not nasty about it he was very definite. I remember some of my peers scoffing at him behind his back. In retrospect of course he was right and I never forgot the lesson.

This officer saw something in me that I, as an eighteen or nineteen-year-old, was not aware of. He made me understand, in the short time he was my OC, that leadership and authority is a two-way street with much responsibility attached – particularly for the leader.

He had taken the trouble to provide leadership himself (not just be the boss) and, not only that, he provided training and an example that would forever stand me in good stead.

A few other officers and senior ranks influenced me similarly over the years, perhaps seeing in me a latent ability that would only come to the fore some years later. I regret not having had more such influences.

It does not matter whether you are in the military or a civilian – the principles of managing and leading people remain the same. Perhaps with a few other considerations driving it but in my mind the most important thing for a leader is to firstly set a good example and then be consistent, be firm and fair and recognise and reward good performance. Rewards can be as subtle as a thank you – or a favourable comment on a job well done.

A bit like bringing up a child – or training a dog perhaps? Consistency and fairness also play a big part.