Sb: Leadership trends LO12739
Responding to Sherri, I am confused. You say the SVPs have two jobs, to
make stockholders happy, and to buffer between stockmarket, shareholders,
and the org so the org can work. Is this your scenario? I have never
actually heard the work of leadership described in these terms. Is this a
general situation or true of specific companies? Sorry to ask so many
questions, but I did not understand your point.
Then you say that the job of leaders can be achieved in a spectrum of ways
-- I assume you are talking about the same thing -- ranging from direct
use of power to LO-type approaches. Tell me if I am misinterpreting.
Then you say, "How well this works," referring to the management method
chosen, I think, "is dependent upon how the organization is set up. For
example, where access to resources is well balanced between departments it
[what?] tends to work better than if there is a lot of comptetition. If
there is a lot of competition then the job of the SVP's becomes 95%
politics."
>From a 'cause & effect' perspective I wonder if in this case, the
imbalance in access to resources is the cause of politically-minded SVPs
or the effect.
You point out correctly that senior management does not walk the talk.
This is sadly true. They do not own this LO point of view for one thing,
but even if they do, they do not actively participate. My experience goes
beyond that, though. 90% plus of management and workers do not 'walk the
talk' on this stuff. And while the excuse of senior management is that
they have another job, the excuse of everyone else is that they can't do
it without senior management. We give senior management even more power
than they already have when we believe that. Perhaps this is true in some
of these bullying orgs you have worked for, but not in most I don't
believe. I can never remember a svp telling someone they could not do
something that was working. I am sure it must happen some, but...
In fact, people's unwillingness to become a LO without energy from senior
management is one of the indicators to me that revolution is somewhat
unlikely unless it is pushed from above. It is still today {5+%
unemployment, and less than 3% for managers) easier to move to a new
company than to do anything controversial. And roughly half of all
severances are employee- rather than employer- initiated.
I look forward to hearing from you.
--Rol Fessenden 76234.3636@compuserve.com
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>