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Let’s dive in…
Leaders have three jobs. Most of the rest of what you hear about leaders is just happy talk from people who have never managed anything other than a computer or a leader trying to virtue signal.
I’ve learned these lessons over the last 20 years and I’ve got the scars to show it. Here we go:
Job #1: Set the Vision. When I started my company, I would go to great lengths to try to develop a vision by committee. It always ended badly.
Your employees’ job isn’t to set vision. If it were they’d be owners and leaders. They want to work within someone else’s vision.
This doesn’t mean you don’t get ideas and input from people. Of course you do but just remember if you are the leader, it’s your vision.
And for god sakes get rid of people who don’t want to follow your vision. There can only be one.
Job #2: Allocate the Resources. This might be even more important than #1. Where a leader allocates resources is a sort of revealed preference.
A leader might emphasize some initiative or other for public relations purposes but when you look under the surface all the people and money is focused on something else.
That leader is revealing to you that she doesn’t care about the thing she’s talking about. She cares about the thing that has the money.
Where most leaders fail on resources, however, is in not having the stomach to reallocate them. Different groups or people within a company will fight for staff and budget.
If you peanut-butter-spread your resources across everything, you get a whole lot of not much. If you don’t have the stomach to take resources from one group and give them to another you aren’t going to get what you want.
No one else is going to do this.
Job #3: Build and Prune the Team. Possibly the most important job of a leader is building the team that uses the resources to implement the vision.
Most companies get stuck because the team isn’t capable of growing to the next level.
All leaders allow loyalty and personal feelings to affect their judgement in this area. It’s inevitable as we are humans but unfortunately the cost is worse performance for the company as a whole.
I’ve certainly done it over and over but when I was able to face the truth and have more mature conversations with people on my management team and to replace them when necessary, the changes caused break through growth.
I’m sorry this one is so true but all my experience tells me it is.
Beware the Leadership Industrial Complex
Beyond these it’s all a bunch of bullshit in my view: being vulnerable, putting your people first, blah blah blah. It’s all happy talk that’ll get you fired or put you out of business in the end.
A leadership industrial complex has been built to make leaders feel better about themselves. Leading is a tough job and requires you to make decisions that leave scars.
Laying off 30 people 4 weeks before Christmas to save your company doesn’t feel good and it stays with you for a long time. But laying off all 140 employees 3 months later feels even worse.
It’s natural that leaders try to portray themselves in a better light. I’m just telling you not to believe the hype.
Keep growing,
Alan
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