Leadership for Managers Part 1

by Andrew Bryant
Director of Self Leadership International

It is a common myth that everyone can be a leader. This is not true as many managers do not have the self leadership (self-awareness + authenticity) necessary for leadership; in a addition the manager must want to be a leader and many do not want to shoulder the responsibility that comes with it.

According to Henry Mintzberg, if you ask a manager what s/he does they will most likely tell you that they plan, organise, co-ordinate and control; however if you watch a manager the truth is very different.

Managers rarely plan, numerous studies show that managers work at an unrelenting pace on activities that are brief, varied and discontinuous. Planning which is a leadership function takes time to step back and reflect, a study of 160 British managers showed that they worked without interuption for half an hour or more only about once every two days.

Managers and Leaders both require information, it is a myth that this information comes from some kind of formal management system or written documents. Managers strongly favour verbal media, telephone calls and meetings over documents (one study showed managers spend 66-80% of their time in verbal communication). Managers cherish "soft" information, especially gossip, hearsay, and speculation, why? - Because the managers prime use for information is to identify problems and opportunities and to build to build mental models of how the business is working.

This heavy reliance on soft information means that the effective leader must develop excellent listening skills and the ability to sense people's intentions. Research by Robert Goffee and Gareth Jones suggests that inspirational leaders are good situational sensors and can "sniff out" the signals in the environment and and sense what's going on without having anything spelled out for them.

So based on just these two qualities of leadership, planning and the interpretation of soft information, can a manager who wants to be a leader develop their self-awareness and forward-thinking.

The answer, from my experience, is most definitely "Yes".

How you use your mind and how you use your body have parallels. The more your use a particular muscle the stronger it gets (in the presence of correct nutrition) and the more you use the thinking processes of "stepping back"(self-awareness) and "forward looking"(planning) the stronger they get.

The advantages of stepping back and forward looking are that we become aware of our own assumptions and prejudices and are able to move from being reactive to actively creating behaviours that will lead to success. CEO Grant Halloran says, "I have grown enormously as an executive: my relations with managers and staff are far more harmonious; I have been able to coach my team through significant personal development; I am more understanding and accepting of my broader responsibilities as a leader; I have much more energy and am able to motivate myself more easily. Most importantly, I have grown my company's revenues and profits significantly."

So how can a manager develop their self leadership and the ability to step back? They must be engaged and challenged to come to the realisation that the way they see the world is filtered by assumptions and expectations and that their decisions become self-fulfilling prophesies.

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