management v’s leadership
Posted by: admin in Learning and Teaching, opinion, professional learningI like this from Doug Johnson:
Let’s face it - anybody can create a “vision” and cry loudly about all the things that are wrong and paint a utopian view that sounds pretty good (and it seems like almost everyone does). But what is usually lacking is any practical means of moving from Point A to Point B - especially within the parameters of working with real people, real budgets and a real number of hours in a day. I would contend that true genius is in finding ways to make vision reality - working where the rubber hits the road.
I’ve been wondering a good deal about what seems to be a round of recent political, economic and educational disasters - the Iraq War, the handling of Hurricane Katrina, the housing bubble, NCLB - and questioning whether it was a lack of leadership or piss-poor management that created (or exacerbated) the mess. Lets see:
* removing an evil dictator and establishing a democracy in the Middle East - good vision, poor execution
* helping the victims of a natural disaster - good vision, poor execution
* increasing the number of people who own their own homes - good vision, poor execution
* assuring that all children have good reading and math skills - good vision, poor executionWhere did we go wrong? Might it have been putting people who couldn’t manage a one-car parade in charge? Leaders, not managers? Hmmmmm.
A really good point he makes….it is not ALL about vision and theory. Real people skills and the ability to manage budgets, people, assets, etc is vital to effective leadership. This is also the stuff we ASSUME people can do and understand when they are in leadership positions.
Many of the leaders who struggle are those who can’t manage the ‘detail’, the things that make it actually happen. A visionary leader without practical skills is a nightmare - we can all think of them and they often have difficulty geting staff. As do those with no/few people skills.
What do we do to ensure that those aspiring leaders as well in leadership now have (or get) these skills?
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Good topic, I’ve been spending a lot of time on it over at Leadership Turn.
I think that the entire leader vs. manager discussion tends to ignore two key items.
1. Real leadership isn’t positional
2. The Peter Principle is alive and well.
oh I agree Miki!! on both points. One of the challenges here in NZ is assuming that BoT’s have the skills to make good principal appointments. SOME of the ones we see leave my colleagues and I shaking our heads.
Greg