I read a good article on Medium today talking about balance. And specifically, about work life balance. And like all good articles it made me stop and think. The question the author posed (although to be fair, they made a statement, I turned it into a questions) is this... is work life balance the biggest lie ever told? Great question. And the author made compelling arguments that it was indeed the biggest lie ever told. But I think that there was a bigger lie told before this that had the author headed down the wrong road to begin with. The bigger lie is that balance means equal. Sure, when we think of balance, we all think... But the truth is that this is also in balance: And so, the thing is that work life balance is not a lie at all. The lie is that balance means same (50/50). I heard a great podcast a while back about OCD. The guest made a great point. He said that if your obsessive compulsiveness did not interfere with your life, it was not OCD. That is, it is not a disorder. It is quite possible to be OC and have a great life. The problem comes in when it interferes with your life. When it disorders your life. Work as much as you like. It only becomes an issue when the other parts of your life feel crowded out or ignored. Similarly, take as much time for yourself as you like. Your boss will let you know when it gets unbalanced. ;) There is no one size fits all for balance. There is no prescriptive structure that you can base your life on. You need to keep evaluating all the parts of your life and feel the flow. You will know when it is out of balance. Images from Pixabay.
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Here is another analogy as we think of reclaimed leadership. (If you missed the first of the pair, it is based on a Justice Potter court decision.)
And this analogy stems from a series of questions I pose to my classes. Is anyone a leader all the time?
So, what are you when you are not a leader?
What then is the difference between you as a leader and you as a follower?
Is there a difference between leadership and followership? I propose that there really isn’t. Leadership is about us, about how we act when our skills come in contact with a situation that needs them. Do we step up or do we shy away. Leading is in that stepping up. You maybe try and appoint someone as a leader, but it doesn’t work if they don’t step up to the task. That makes leadership something other than management. Management is bestowed upon us. Leadership is something from within us, it is not put upon us. Much like Shrödinger’s cat we are both (or neither) a leader and a follower at the same time. That is, we are us and we lead when the situation calls for it and follow at other times. And so, it follows to me, that when we set out to educate or train leaders, what we are really doing is helping people to be the best that they can be. That way, when the situation arises, they will step up and lead. Like my high schools’ motto: Character Before Career. In the first draft of this post (in my head) I was going to title it Leadership and Pornography. But I thought that that might be seen as just click bait. And besides, a Supreme Court Justice is good to have in a headline.
If you are not familiar, take a moment to review Justice Potter’s concurring opinion in Jacobellis v. Ohio. In thinking and writing about a reclaimed view of leadership and management I feel a struggle for a definition. I mean it is pretty easy to define assigned leadership (management). Shouldn’t it also be easy to define emergent leadership? And yet, that is the hill that a lot of theories have died on. I took a grad class on leadership and in that class we looked at somewhere around 10 theories of leadership and why each one was good, but not, in the end, the theory. What is leadership? What is it made of? How is it made? Who are leaders? All good, and hard to definitively answer, questions. Given that it might just be too hard of a thing to do, let’s paraphrase Justice Stewart and say: “I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within leadership, and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it…” (italics and substitutions mine) And that may be all we need. Although I hardly feel that will stop the academic pursuit of a definition. But maybe, for the practitioners we can agree that we know it when we see it. We can agree that we understand the impact and effects of leadership. From there we can work backwards and come up with practices and exercises to become better leaders. After all, it is the followers that make leaders and not visa-versa. I believe, and have written here, that Iam not a fan of the merging of leader and manager. Either as a process, job or title.
At the high level, managers are inward and execution focused. Leaders are outward and vision focused. And to further separate them, managers are assigned, and leaders lead because of who they are how they interact with others. We surely need both of these in our companies. They can even be the same people, just not at the same time. And one of the reasons I am unhappy when people substitute leader for manager is that it takes away from the need for great managers and the skill sets that they bring to our endeavors. Focusing on leadership as a modern-day golden fleece hurts the discipline of management and hurts our companies. With out execution and the broad view that managers bring, we are cripplingly ourselves. And just this week Inc. magazine gave us another reason to pay attention to managers. In their article “New Study Shows Companies Use Manager Titles as a Clever Way to Pay Employees Less” Inc. points out that some companies are giving employees fake management titles to avoid paying overtime. In their count it costs 73,000 employees about $4 billion a year. (I will let you read the article for the details.) There are a couple issues here that spring to mind. The first is just the ethical issue of what companies are doing and how they are treating their employees. I will leave that to others to discuss. I am more focused on what that does to further damage management as a practice adn occupation. In one example a company retitled a Receptionist to Director of First Impressions. Full disclosure, I had heard of that retitling before and I was rather in favor of it. I liked the idea of reinforcing what job the person was doing. You are not receiving people, you are more proactive and part of our strategy, you are creating first impressions. But to see it here as a rouse to not pay overtime? That is ridiculous. Think of the message you are sending. Management is nothing but a title. There are no skills involved, it is just a way to manipulate salaries. This practice is short sighted on many fronts. It doesn’t help employees grow. It doesn’t help the company execute. It doesn’t help with employee retention. It’s a short-term money trick. Tricks will catch up to us. As businesses we need to be playing the long game, the infinite game, if you will. Here is a list I ran across a while ago.
11 Characteristics of Truly Inspiring Leaders
So what’s wrong with that list, you might ask. And it is a great question because there is nothing wrong with the list. Its really an issue with the list title. Read the list again. Would you be happy to follow a leader like that? Absolutely. Would you be happy working for a manager like that? You bet. Who wouldn’t want parents like that and you know that we all would be overjoyed if we had friends like that. The thing is, the title is too exclusive. Those characteristics aren't exclusive to Truly Inspiring Leaders. Those are 11 Characteristics of Amazing People. Assuming Jim Rohn was right when he said, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with”, this is pretty much a list of qualities I want in the folks next to me. And so it really isn’t so much about leadership as it is about character. Leadership isn’t a thing. It isn’t who we are. It is not an identity. It is what we do when the occasion calls for it. And so I am all for putting this list up on mirrors and vision boards and on the front of the fridge. Just don’t put the title up there. And take the word ‘they’ off the front of each sentence. Let me make a suggestion: In 2023 I want to:
I have been thinking a lot about purpose lately. It feels like it dovetails rather nicely with leadership. I mean after all, if leadership is the process of getting people to voluntarily pursue organizational goals (to borrow from Northouse). Then it begs the question of what those goals are. What is the purpose of the organization? And that works if it is a not-for-profit, a huge company, or anyone in-between.
There is a lot we can talk about around purpose. We can talk about the work of Simon Sinek, or Paul Jarvis, Adam Grant… you know the list. But lets stay high level for a moment. As a starter, take a moment and answer the following question for yourself. Not for me. Not for anyone else. No one will see. Be honest. What is the purpose of your work. Not why do you do it. Not what are the company goals. But what is the purpose. Maybe finish this sentence… We exist to ___________ . I would argue we don’t exist to make money. We don’t even exist to make a product / provide a service. Please don’t say maximize shareholder wealth. Why are we here. It is a great question. And the answer ought to drive your business. If we were in a workshop right now I would take a 15 minute break and have you all think about that for a bit and write something down. Not a mission or vision statement, just your purpose. So if you can do that now, that would be cool. ;) The next question is, does everyone working for you, with you, around you, know that that is what the purpose of your company is? If not, this ought to become mission #1. Everyone needs to know, clearly and without a doubt, what your company purpose it. Knowing the purpose gives everyone a pole start to navigate by. Every decision can be addressed by holding the alternatives up to the purpose. Which choice best advances our purpose? Which option is more inline with our purpose? Its simple but nuanced. And very powerful. It is not about quota (sales or production) it is not about metrics or winning. Its not about what you do, its not why you are better/faster/cheaper, it is why you, as a company, exist. It drives everything. There has been a lot written about Andor. And while I admit I was a bit late coming to the show, I love it. If you haven’t seen this gem yet, try this. There is way to much out there on the subject to catalog here but I did like this piece an awful lot.
So let’s assume you have the basics of Andor down. And if not, you may want to pause reading and remedy that. I have a feeling that there are spoilers on the way. Like, right away. The big news here is that this is the Star Wars universe without the normal population. And by that I mean no baby Yoda, no Luke, Han, Jedis, Darth Vader, light sabers or even the Force. So far I think I have heard the name Palpatine mentioned three times and that constitutes the entire nod to all the movies we have so far. So without all that is Star Wars what do you have? Everything. Or should I say, everything else. What you have is Star Wars for the rest of us. It is the real world for those of us who will never be Elon Musk or on The Real Housewives of anywhere. And sure, maybe it is because we will never have a billion dollars that we like to watch Succession. But there is more to life than escapist entertainment. I am not being anti-escapist here, I am just saying yes, and. And the and is important. Computers can pay games. But they are gaming and business machines. Trucks can do work and take us camping. The and is important. So let’s look at the and in Andor (oh, that word play worked out well). A long time ago there was a past life rage. Everyone was interested in finding out who they were in a past life. And it was eventually noted that no one was ever a serf. Everyone turned out to be a prince or queen or rich merchant. No one cleaned stables in a past life. And yet we know that people did. Andor is rather like that. It is Star Wars, but you don’t get to be a Jedi or Sith Lord or a bounty hunter. You just get to be you. You wake up, you go to work, you make dinner. But we know there is more. We know there is a galactic struggle for good and evil and the fate of the universe is hanging in the balance. But these guys? These guys are going to work, trying to get promoted, trying to do a good job, trying to be a good partner/parent/boss/worker. Sure, they also have flying cars and such. But still… Sorry, got a bit carried away there… we were also supposed to talk about leadership. The big thing that I take away from this with regard to leadership is that it is very important where you look for examples. Think back the movie New Hope (to which Andor is leading us). We meet the Jedis, we see the evil empire and we are just waiting for Luke to burst into his Jedi own and kick some evil butt. From a leadership perspective it teaches us to say ‘just wait’. Just wait till I become a Jedi. Just wait till I get my training from Yoda. The thing is, in Andor there is no waiting. There is no waiting because there are no Jedis. No light sabers. No Force. There is only us and there is only now. In our lives we may say: Just wait till I graduate. Just wait till I get to be a manager. Just wait till I start my own company. And that is parallel. Andor teaches us that we are all we need. We don’t get to speak to power (well, Mon Mothma does but that aside…). All we can do is work with what we know and team up with who we know. Leadership, and by that I mean leadership for us, leadership for followers, is not policy makers and presidents and CEOs. In other words it is not of the Jedis and Emperors. And that is why Andor speaks to leadership for you and me. In our world and time we have our own galactic struggles to face. We have wars and poverty and pandemics. And the vast majority of us are not the Lukes and Hans of our world. We are the Andors. We are the people we are and we lead from where we are with the skills that we have. Star Wars is wonderful and galactic space operas are some of my favorite things. But if you want to see leadership you can emulate, watch Andor. “It is a curious thing, Harry, but perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it. Those who, like you, have leadership thrust upon them, and take up the mantle because they must, and find to their own surprise that they wear it well.” ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
This quote has been running through my head as we approach election day here in the US. There is a lot of hand wringing and general hubbub surrounding the campaigns. I find that in the general back and forth about elections there is a general question about why elections are usually a choice between the lesser of two evils. Why don’t good people run, is a common question. And indeed, why don’t good people run? Why don’t we have people we can vote for instead of voting against one of the options? Why indeed. I feel like there are many reasons why. And I am sure the vast majority of us are powerless to do anything about those reasons. And so I am not going to talk about them. But I am going to flip the question. What I want to know is why don’t people vote? What makes people give up their right to choose who runs their town, county, state and country? to give up their voice? Why would you leave that up to someone else? Why give them that power? Don’t forget what the true power dynamic is. Followers empower leaders, not the other way around. If you don’t like your leader, then all you have to do is follow someone else. You want to be a leader? Then take someone with you as you switch. I bet you want to do all you can do to make it a better place, right? If you don’t vote, you haven't done all you can do. And if you aren’t doing all you can, you are leaving it up to someone else. Don’t give up your voice. If your world does not rotate on the axis of technology and especially software, then you may not be familiar with deprecation. In short, a deprecated feature in a software program is one that used to be there, but is no longer functional or supported.
Techtarget.com has a great definition: “Deprecated means, generally, that something is acknowledged but discouraged.” And as it has come to pass, the pandemic has given me a list of deprecated words. That is, words that exist, but I highly discourage using them. It is a relatively short list:
The words are so ubiquitous and used by so many people in so many situations that they have, to my ears, to have lost all meaning. And today I am adding another one (ok, a phrase really):
It just doesn’t make sense. Leadership is not a position. Management is a position. You can be in a position to lead, but you cannot be in a leadership position. It is a much more personal thing than that. Leaders are created by the First Follower and by all the Followers that come to join the cause after that. Leadership is a bottom up phenomena and not a top down blessing. You cannot be given leadership position any more than Yoda can appoint you to be a Jedi. It’s in you or it isn’t. Sure, the high council can name you Jedi Master, but that is a job title that is theirs to give. You either are a Jedi or you are not and the council has nothing to do with that. And it is similar with leadership. You are a leaders or you are not. You may be in a position to lead, and you may take advantage of that or not, but no one can assign it to you. And that is the beauty of leadership. If we work on our selves. If we become the best that we can be. We will be ready when the situation presents itself. And that is the goal. “A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: We did it ourselves.” And you do not need a position to do that. You simply need to be in position. This is a follow up to my thoughts on articles with numbers in the headlines. The more that phenomena ran through my brain, the more I got to thinking that it may not be about attention span at all.
I am not sure of the timeline, but I feel like there is a through line to a number of things. Among them:
All of these things allow you to (theoretically) achieve something without knowing anything about it. And there is certainly some time savings there. And no, we don’t need to know how to tear down an engine to be able to drive a car. But still… The deeper issue, to me, is that when you take the shortcut first, before you learn the process, you surrender your responsibility and agency to someone else. And all is ok, until its not. Once you head down this road, you end up trying things other people propose with no idea how or why they work and whether they will work for you or not. Imagine if Michael Jordan wrote a book, “6 Hacks to Play in the NBA”. What are the chances that would work for me? Absolutely zero. The problem is that I am not like Michael Jordan. I do not have his talent, upbringing, drive to play basketball and a host of other things. So the hacks won’t work for me no matter how often I try them. The same goes for any number of other shortcuts. How do I know if what worked for you will work for me? Until I know more, I don’t. just randomly trying things that worked for you isn't a good plan and could be dangerous. I am much better off spending my time learning about something and then applying it to my life in a way that works for me. Are there people that can help with that? Absolutely. But they are there to guide, not to shortcut. So hacks and numbered articles sure, but voting? Its the same idea. Just because a senate candidate is the same party as the gubernatorial candidate does not mean that Party A has a one size fits all solution that will work. Countries are different than states which are different than cities. The issues are different, the solutions will be different and maybe to people crafting the solutions need to be different. What matters is what works to make your life and neighborhood better, not the ease of voting. It doesn’t matter what it is, weight loss, exercise, politics, being a better husband/wife/father/mother… Do you own research. Make your own conclusions. Choose your own way. Shortcuts only really work for people that know what they are doing in the first place. |
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AuthorChip Galusha is the Acting Director of the Miller School of Entrepreneurship and he teaches Leadership & Professional Development in the College of Business at East Carolina University. Archives
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