Continuing from my previous post about Prof. Ram Charan's seminar on Putting People Before Numbers, I wanted to share and discuss a hypothesis that most organizations fail to distinguish between Managers and Leaders.
Prof. Ram Charan had shared a concept of segmenting managers into categories like P&L Managers, Functional Managers, Experts, etc. That is a wonderful way of thinking about people, capabilities and careers. I had also shared about the popular perception that the P&L Manager role is the one that everyone aspires to (or is expected to aspire to). What this has led to is the confusion between a Manager's job and that of a Leader. It is popularly understood that a leader, whether that of a Business Unit or an Organization, is the ultimate P&L Manager. Therefore, by default, the best P&L Manager is expected to become the CEO or the best Function Manager is asked to lead a function or a division.
This is the biggest mistake that many organizations make.
A leader need not be the best manager that an organization has. Leadership has been defined by many gurus, so I will only provide three things that I believe characterize leaders:
1. Vision: A leader has a clear picture of the future, aspirational state of the organization, and the confidence that we will get there.
2. Inspiring: Either through crystal-clear communication or pure induction, the leader inspires her team to believe in the vision and strategy.
3. Collaborating: The leader attracts the best people into his team and enables superior performance, jointly and individually, towards the shared vision.
The third quality includes, by extension, the ability to spot talented people and future leaders.
How often have we not seen that the crack sales person, crafty financial expert or creative marketing lead possesses none of these qualities. However, the accepted career progression for a wonderful manager is to become a "leader". It is likely that a good leader was a good manager, but it is not at all necessary that every successful manager would be an effective leader. But who can argue against established career paths? Both are hurt in this process: many a great manager starts underperforming when thrust with a leadership role; many potential leaders languish in roles where their capabilities are under-utllized.
Most leaders know about the importance of talent management, yet they fail to do much about it. A reason I mentioned in the earlier post was that talent management has been mystified. Perhaps there is another reason. Maybe many of those who are in leadership roles are not leaders themselves and therefore, do not possess that innate quality of identifying and nurturing talent. Have we become victim to traditional norms of career progressions and promotions?
This is a controversial topic, and as I mentioned in the seminar, usually a "career limiting" one for those who raise it. All I have for my hypothesis is anecdotal evidence. This requires more research and discussion. I welcome your thoughts and feedback.