Gautam's First Two baby Steps

Micro manager to Macro manager

Gautam’s biggest challenge was quickly moving from managing a function to leading a bunch of functions constituting an SBU. In the beginning, this transition undermined his confidence to take decisions. As a result he got into the over-managing and micromanaging what he had   been well versed with and almost neglecting the rest of the functions. But he became aware of it before it was too late,when his HR  head gave him very valuable but matter of fact feedback about how stifled his GM marketing was feeling, gasping desperately for some space.The tendency of managers like Gautam to remain stuck in their functional comfort zones is a  natural reaction to the inconvenience of moving up to a macro  role. It is not fair to expect newly elevated business leaders to be experts in all business areas, But it is good if they are able to move quickly into the roles of macro mangers and turn themselves from specialists into  generalists who are reasonably well versed with all the functions to lead their businesses.

Doer to Facilitator 

The key responsibility of a  functional leader is to recruit,& select, train & develop, and then manage people who specialize in specific business roles.On the other hand a business leader’s role is to lead the teams of functional experts and facilitate their efforts and  activities to solve problems and achieve team goals..

Gautam found himself caught up with this struggle to make this shift  as he was striving hard to meet the demands of his SBU. His GM Sales, for example wanted to immediately go to market with their new product which he thought would help him achieve his numbers. On the other hand his head of operations worried that they were not in a position to ramp up production so fast to meet this demand. Gautam’s role demanded that he balance the needs of his different functions, and keep an eye on the numbers without forgetting to pay enough attention to R & D and  innovation.This was not possible till Gautam realized that he had to be a facilitator rather than a manager.

How Gautam Evolved from  Manager to  Leader

Gautam was a high-performing Sales Manager with 15 years of rich experience at a well known Indian Engineering company. As company grew in sales and profits, he also grew in ranks and one day won his dream promotion to become the Business Head of company’s Gas-Turbines Division, a business with more than 1000 employees across the country. The company had decided to assign him this role to make him run a small but growing business unit with a dynamic and committed team. The plan was to give him an opportunity to transcend managing sales and marketing, learn to run a ‘Business’ and move his leadership skills to the next higher level. Everything seemed to be going on as planned, but within a few months Gautam was struggling to stay afloat along with the division. He was like many star performers who fail when they move from managing a department or a function to heading an SBU and for the first time in their career become accountable for a bottom-line and overall responsibility for various corporate functions. Like so many of his peers, Gautam had difficulty managing these multiple roles. In order to be a success in his new role of a business leader, Gautam needed to make the following shifts in his leadership and working style: (1) Micro Manager to a Macro Manager (2) Doer to Facilitator (3) Implementer to Designer (4) Solution finder to Pre-emptor (5) Fighter to Negotiator(6) Supporting actor to the Lead actor. Gautam, who was used to managing things for so many years, had a tough challenge ahead, moving into the above six new paradigms. We will see shortly how he evolved into the role of a leader by dint of his determination, with the support of his seniors and under the guidance of a coach.

What am I?... A leader or a Manager?

Managing is basically about doing what maintains and/or develops

the ongoing operations of an organisation. It is concerned with the management of people,processes and capital.For managing capital the managers perform activities like budgeting and planning.For managing people they spend their time efforts and energies on things like performance reviews, discipline, grievance handling, recruitment, training etc.

Information on the Best practices is available for these processes. Managers learn them through instructor-led and on-the-job training and perfect them through practice. To be a better manager one just needs to learn to do them the right way.

Leading or Leadership on the other hand has a lot to do with showing direction and inspiring people to head towards it. 
It stems from the ongoing operation of the organisation and helps it to transcend beyond it. Rather than depending on systems and processes, Leadership depends on many positive personal traits like moral strength, vision, self discipline,building & nurturing relationships and motivating people.

Since every leader is different and every situation a leader faces is different, there are different styles of leadership. That is the reason leadership is best learnt and taught by and while   guiding people and mentoring them as they face and make virtues out of their own challenges.

Therefore the only place and way to acquire the strength to lead is,’on-the-job’, ideally under the guidance of a coach.

How can I become a better leader?

All of us are evolving and growing as leaders and mostly we do it by trial and error. What accelerates this evolution and makes it less painful at the same time, is the support of ‘people who matter’ to us. They are our informal leadership coaches and care for us enough to tell us if we are heading the right direction. We too value their opinions and listen to them.

It’s not too difficult to spot our ‘people who matter’. They are the ones who want us to become a perfect version of us rather than facsimiles of them.

Lucky are those among us who have professional colleagues, friends and family members who have the patience and inclination to listen to us and show us what we are not seeing,

help us see the possibilities and make our decisions. However due to the complexity of challenges leaders in today’s organisations are facing, they are turning to professional leadership coaches.

Some thoughts as a way forward…

•       Spare some time to reflect on where you are headed.
•   What kind of legacy you intend to leave behind in the   

               role you are in?

•   What value do you want to add to your family and

               friends?

•   What is the role you want beyond the next one? (and  

               how would the current one and the next one help  
          you   get  there?)

•   Think about who are your ‘people who matter’.
•   Are they aware that you look at them this way?
•   How can you seek and get more of their support?
•   What can you do for them to reciprocate?

The Metamorphosis

Leader Vs Manager is a very old debate.We keep hearing that ultimately every manager has to evolve into a leader.But does such an evolution really happen?I have not seen it .There are managers and there are leaders.Has any one seen such a  metamorphosis happen ? Please share the story with me if you have been witness to such a transformation.

It is fairly common to see processes like metamorphosis and evolution in the non-human part of this universe.In fact these terms come from Bio-Sciences and are now very widely used by practitioners and researchers in management and business.

The reason why this transformation doesn't seem to happen (I have not been a witness to it as I said earlier) or is not so wide spread,could be the resistance to change by the human,the social animal who happens to be a manager.It is of common knowledge that in the personal spheres of our day to day life, more our resistance to change or adopt something new, more difficult, painful and long-drawn becomes the process of  evolving into a new self .We resist the change till there is no option at all, even when adopting the change is necessary for our survival.Even when we can foresee the long terms payoffs, we tend to procrastinate and avoid the change.The case in point is the benefits of exercising, quitting smoking, switching over to a balanced diet or going for a medical check up.

I feel it's the same resistance and tendency to procrastinate that prevents and many times delays the metamorphosis of a manager into a leader.