Leading and managing an organisation

Lal Fonseka

Productivity Consultant, Brandix Lanka Limited

In our country, are we having true and effective leaders? Yes of course, we do have, but it is only a handful of people. We may be having very few leaders in the caliber of Jack Welch. There is no argument. Leaders inspire. Leaders are people who inspire with clear vision of how things can be done better. "What we are looking for are leaders at every level who can energize, excite and inspire rather than enervate, depress and control."

True leaders create a vision and then ignite the organisation to make this vision a reality. Get people so passionate about what they are doing that they cannot wait to execute this plan. Have great energy, competitive spirit and the ability to spark excitement and achieve results.

Micromanaging is not allowed for a true leader. Your job is to see the big picture. Do not manage every detail. Do not get caught up in the minutiae or obsess over every detail, but instead inspire others to execute of your vision. Surround yourself with great people and trust them to do their job and contribute their best to the organisation.

Involve everyone and welcome great ideas from everywhere. Anyone can be a leader, just so long as they contribute, and the most meaningful way for anyone to contribute is to come up with a good idea. Business is all about getting the best ideas from everyone. New ideas are the lifeblood of the organisation, the fuel that makes it run. "The hero is the person with a new idea." There is simply nothing more important to an organisation than expressing ideas and creating a vision.

There is no question; you have got to lead by example. To spark others to perform, you must lead by example. Even at home, father has to lead by example. Then only the children will be good citizen of the country. Jack Welch mastery of the four E's of leadership - Energy, Energize, Edge and Execution - was always in evidence. "He had great energy, sparked others, had incredible competitive spirit, and had a record of execution that was second to none. This is a key of the Welch phenomenon. Had he been lacking in any of the traits he espoused, he would not have commanded such acclaim."

'Manage less' is a new concept emerged in the modern era. "We are constantly amazed by how much people will do when they are not told what to do by management." In the new knowledge-driven economy, people should make their own decision. Managing less is managing better. Close supervision, control and bureaucracy kill the competitive spirit of the organisation. "Weak managers are the killers of business; they are the job killers. You cannot manage self-confidence into people."

'Articulates your vision' is yet another area you have got to concentrate heavily. "Leaders inspire people with clear visions of how things can be done better." The best leaders do not provide a step-by-step instruction manual for workers. The best leaders are those who come up with new idea, and articulate a vision that inspires others to act.

Simplify keeping things simple is one of the keys to business. "Simple messages travel faster, simpler designs reach the market faster and the elimination of clutter allows faster decision making."

"You must realise now how important it is to maintain the kind of corporate informality that encourages a training class to comfortably challenge the boss's pet ideas."

Good and effective leaders do energize others. Genuine leadership comes from the quality of your vision and your ability to spark others to extraordinary performance.

Unless you face reality, you will not be able to produce effective set of subordinates. Face reality, and then act decisively. Most mistakes that leaders make arise from not being willing to face reality and then acting on it. Facing reality often means saying and doing things that are not popular, but only by coming to grips with reality would things get better.

See change as an opportunity,change is a big part of the reality in business. "Willingness to change is strength, even if it means plunging part of the company into total confusion for a while... Keeping an eye out for change is both exhilarating and fun."

Get good ideas from everywhere. Japanese do always follow this principle which is known as 'Kaizen'.

New ideas are the lifeblood of business. "The operative assumption today is that someone, somewhere, has a better idea; and the operative compulsion is to find out who has that better idea, learn it, and put it into action - fast."

Bureaucracy is the enemy...
Drop unnecessary work...
Delayer; create a flat responsive organisation...
Cross-pollinate to make faster and better decisions...
Encourage employees to identify problems and come up with solutions...
Make your workplace more informal...

Following up is also a good habit of a good leader.Follow up on everything. Follow-up is one key measure of success for a business. Your follow-up business strategy will pave the way for your success.

Getting rid of bureaucracy is the most important area good leaders follow. The way to harness the power of your people is "to turn them loose, and get the management layers off their backs, the bureaucratic shackles off their feet and the functional barriers out of their way."

Create a learning culture

Turn your company into a learning organisation to spark free flow of communication and exchange of ideas. "The desire and the ability, of an organisation to continuously learn from any source, anywhere - and to rapidly convert this learning into action - is its ultimate competitive advantage." Involve everyone

Business is all about capturing intellect from every person. The way to engender enthusiasm is to allow employees far more freedom and far more responsibility.
Start with yourself...
Encourage people to take initiative...
Use the brains of every worker...
Create an atmosphere where workers feel free to speak out...
Make everyone a team player manager
Everybody should learn to become team players. Middle managers have to be team members and coaches.
Take steps against those managers who wouldn't learn to become team players.

Leadership skills that is lacking in our leaders to enhance productivity are as follows.

1. Make others feel important.Our leaders have conveniently forgotten this principle. Our leaders feel that they are the only set of people who are important. As I have been mentioning everywhere in this book, the most important people in an organisation is the shop floor employees.

2. If your goals and decisions are self-centered, followers will lose their enthusiasm quickly. Emphasize their strengths and contributions, not your own. Yet again, another area our organisational leaders overlook. How much your own goals are important, it is the people who has to contribute to achieve those goals. Unfortunately, this principle too is conveniently forgotten by our managers.

3. Promote a vision. This again, our organisations are lacking behind. Instead of promoting vision, mission and values of the organisation, organisational managers devise a nice set of brochures showing these visions and keep them on their tables and sometimes hang on a wall.

4. Followers need a clear idea of where you are leading them, and they need to understand why that goal is valuable to them.

5. Your job as a leader is to provide that vision.

6. Treat your followers the way you enjoy being treated. As a human being, you are always expecting a way that you should be treated. Please remember it is the way the others who work under you too to treat them.

7. An abusive leader attracts few loyal followers. No one will like to work for abusive leaders. May be they would show that they like them in their presence but the moment you turn back displeasure will come into action.

8. Admit mistakes. This is a good quality characteristic everyone should learn. In most of the time,I have observed that our leaders are trying to palm their mistakes too to their responsibilities. You, as a human being, are bound to make mistakes. But if you could admit those,even god will, will bless you.

9. If people suspect that you are covering up your own errors, they will hide their mistakes, too,and you will lack valuable information for making decisions.

10. Criticise others only in private. This is a golden rule our managers should focus on. "Discipline in private, praise in public." During my long working carrier, the most of so called managers after spending millions of rupees and thousands of hours on training continue to practice the same methods that they have been practicing before they left for training.

11. Public praise encourages others to excel, but public criticism only embarrasses and alienates everyone.

12. Stay close to the action.

13. You need to be visible to the members of your organisation. This is in the modern economy known as the management by transparency. As I explained in an early stage, employees in our organisations could see the faces of the top people. Instead, they do always see the half-dead faces of the supervisors.

14. Talk to people, visit other offices and work sites ask questions, and observe how business is being handled. This is what all our managers should do in carrying out their day to day functions. Hardly you will come across a manager of such nature in our organisations.

15. Often you will gain new insights into your work and find new opportunities for motivating your followers.

16. Make a game of competition. The competition makes the companies to out beat the others within a short period. No company or organisation could close their eyes even for a fraction of a second. During this period, your customers will be stolen by your competitors. You would not be surprised, if I put it down on record that even florist and funeral undertakers are competing each other for the dead body.

17. The competitive drive can be a valuable tool if you use it correctly.

18. Set team goals, and reward members who meet or exceed them. Goal setting is another technique all organisations should follow.

19. Examine your failures and celebrate your group's successes.

20. Always try to be a model.