Do You Manage Your People or Lead Them?

I want to preface this entire post by saying that I am NOT an expert on leadership or following. I want to share what I've learned so far. I know my growth in this area isn't over, and honestly, I hope it never is.

Have you seen Disney's™ The Call of the Wild? I have only been able to watch it once because it is extremely sad. That being said, there is a scene that is a great example of how some management types insight a following out of fear while others can band people together by seeing their needs and bringing them to fruition. In the movie, while the previous Alpha hogs the water and believes he should have his fill before sharing, Buck opens a second hole and encourages the other dogs to drink before him. This is a great metaphor for how a leader should treat their people.

What is the difference between a Leader and an Authority?

I also saw this video on the FYP one day, which spoke to me. The man in the video defines the two sides of this coin as 'Authorities' and 'Leaders'.

"....We do what they say because they have authority over us, but we wouldn't follow them anywhere."

I've also heard it described to me this way: Do you want to be like them? Do you want to emulate them in any way? Managers manage people and people's tasks. Leaders help people be great at what they do and who they are.

During what seems like a lifetime ago, I was a part of a direct sales company. I thought that the director who led my team was a good exemplification of a leader. She didn't spend any time glorifying us for what we were capable of. She challenged us on what we thought we were capable of. She helped us dig into the deepest parts of our beings and pull out our inner badass. [Side note - I know many people have had awful experiences with direct sales companies. I didn't experience that, but I understand it exists, and I don't deny that.] I had another mentor in that company. She always said, "My role is to help you become greater than I could ever be." It's been many years since I was involved with the company, but I can still hear her voice in my mind every time I say that phrase. I apply this to the way I mother my daughter. To help her grow into something ten times greater than anything I ever thought I was capable of. Maybe even ten times better than what she thinks she is capable of.

When I was active duty military, it was shoved down our throats to 'respect the collar.' If you don't recognize that adage, the collar is where the rank insignia was often worn on the uniforms we wore. Enlisted military superiors also would have filled lower-ranking roles at some point in their career, allowing for the precedence of expecting direct superiors to be able to carry out anything that fell into the roles and responsibilities of a lower-ranking job or collateral. I had a really hard time with a blind respect concept. It's one reason I am no longer on active duty. For me, respect is earned, not demanded. Respect, by definition, means 'worthy of high esteem or regard.' I don't intend to imply that it is acceptable to be rude or disorderly. There is also a difference between respect (in the manner by which I mean it) and being considerate. Obviously, the military would fail if they went by my concept of respect, but it works just fine in the civilian world. In the real world, that idea of superiors being able to carry out every aspect of lower-level roles also doesn't translate well.

Have you ever talked about your manager or the executive team and called them "upper management"? Or maybe you have said, "The person above me." This is a difficult pill to swallow. These are vertical ideas of management. Both create a mental picture of being beneath someone, and it is a breeding ground for disappointing and derogating mindsets. Management, "authority" is vertical. We are conditioned to think of people being above us and, in turn, us below them. The same way the military calls it a Chain of Command. That is a vertical concept. Actual leadership does not convey a vertical notion. Leadership is horizontal. There is always an understanding that the leader, although arm-in-arm with you, is the one to follow. Understanding isn't the right word. It feels inherent, something you know in the depth of your soul. Something that goes unsaid. There is no hierarchical status to leadership. It's a different type of equality and respect. Leadership is linear and worthy of mutual respect and trust on all fronts, whereas Authority implies one-way respect. Think of the infantry line in the wars of our ancestors. North Carolina Museum of History says this about the role of the Colonel:

The colonel was expected to lead his regiment into battle personally to ensure that it performed to its utmost ability.

Surprisingly, since being honorably discharged from the military, I have only been surrounded by leaders. At least, that's true for my direct supervisors. I have had people on the executive teams in the companies that I have worked for who like to interfere in areas that not only are not their current realm of activities but also in things where they have become so accustomed to their authority that they assert themselves in areas that are way out of their swim lane. Unlike the military, the people on the executive team have not been in my shoes, having experience filling my position (most of the time). They cannot complete the responsibilities of my roles. If I went on vacation, they would not be able to complete my work in my stead. I work in the IT community. Imagine a Chief Financial Officer coming into the IT office trying to tell someone how to repair a computer or operate a cloud environment. We all play our parts, and that is not theirs. That is where their authority has not only given them the false sense of the right to assert themselves but also a distorted impression that their words hold value in the arena where they don't belong. That authority is what I find to be overwhelming for some executives to handle. Authority is power, and that power becomes too overwhelming for them to be able to distribute it properly. These same people also often have superiority complexes. They see themselves as the smartest people in the room. Most of that is because that is the case 99% of the time, but it leaves them unable to recognize that 1% of instances when someone else's idea could be the better course of action. Isn't that what a leader would do? Wouldn't a leader only want the best outcome possible regardless of whose idea it was?

Care About You as a Human

My time in that same direct sales company also brought me much knowledge and first-hand experience of what leadership looks like. There were those women that were only interested in success, but they weren't a part of the people that I was blessed to interact with. The women I was fortunate enough to know were leaders. I wanted to emulate the caliber of women that I followed. It was not about their status or their sales stats. It was about the way they carried themselves and the way that they treated others. When we learned about the 5 Love Languages, they took great interest in which one everyone on their team was so that they best knew how to connect with us. I had the same experience when we discussed Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. I knew that, as a person, I was important to them. I also felt that their love for me went beyond the sale. Sometimes, I wished I could see myself through their eyes to see what they saw in me. After three years of being immersed in this company, I felt like the people who led me led me to a better version of myself. Even though I didn't stay with the company or the team, their commitment to my best life didn't end.

Consideration for Your Work/Life Balance and the Advancement of Your Career

If you have a leader at work instead of an authority, you can identify them because they are interested in your career training and advancement, even if it doesn't always directly benefit the company. Maybe it comes in the form of them meeting with you to figure out what you want to accomplish next and what new responsibility you want to take on at work. They might often talk about how their responsibility is to help you take their job from them just as they should be taking their senior's job from that person. Their care could be conveyed by an earnest concern for your personal life and working with you to make sure that you are exactly where you need to be, even if it isn't at work. Don't abuse their generosity and understanding, either. Continue to show up and go above and beyond when you are there or when you can work extra hours.

Something my previous leader and mentor did was one-on-one meetings. Every two weeks, there is a dedicated half-hour block where we chat. In my case, we would talk about any work relationships that I might feel aren't going quite as planned and whether or not I could resolve the issue on my own. He would either give me advice on how to handle this situation or he would decide if it was worthy of his intervention. We also talked about any upcoming personal or professional issues that might interfere with the project scheduling or my emotional state. Lastly, we would talk about what new responsibilities there were on his list of things or on my coworker's list of things that I wanted to learn and/or take over. This meeting was beyond valuable. We were able to get on the same page, check in about any goals I was supposed to be working on, and discuss any needs I might have.

My previous manager did these meetings also. Yes, I called him a manager. I'm not sure that he fell into either title, as he did a pretty good job of skirting the line. Authority, in this matter, would look something like the lack thereof of each explanation. Having zero consideration for your personal struggles. That usually comes as, "Check your personal life at the door when you come to work." It also means only having new training approved for you as long as it only benefits the company, including that it probably doesn't even interest you. It means solving your work conflicts independently and without advice or oversight, even when intervention is the proper course of action.

Standing Up for Your Team

I had a superior while I was serving the country that I had huge conflicts with (that is a different post for a different day). A large part of that clash was because that superior lacked a backbone. He never acted in our best interests. His actions were based on solidifying that no one above him would ask him to explain himself. A portion of leadership comes into play when they can tell their superiors, "No. I am not putting that person/my people through that concept that you are proposing. Here are the reasons that it won't work [insert reasons]. I am willing to discuss alternatives, but that solution is not plausible."

There's a saying, "Shit rolls downhill." If you haven't heard this saying before, it implies that when upper management gets reprimanded, we all get reprimanded. Our managers come in upset because they got their butt handed to them and, in turn, lay into their teams. NO! This is not leadership. That is Authority on all fronts. Part of leadership is knowing how to filter out the unnecessary while still conveying the message that upper management is trying to send down and do so without transferring the idea that the entire team is worthless. My leader at my previous job had to do something like that for me. When I am assigned a task, I make it my mission to truly understand all the requirements for completion from the beginning. During this interaction, one of the executives was assigning me tasks, I would ask questions to make sure I fully understood. Still, when I would deliver the product to the guidelines that were given, it was never good enough. After three weeks of this, I had to tell my leader that I would have to resign if this collaboration with the Authority continued because I couldn't handle the stress and constant failure. I am not sure how he did it, but he was able to ensure I did not collaborate with the Authority anymore. If any future projects came up after that, if there was already a plan for the Authority to be involved, it automatically meant that I was not involved. If you're thinking, "You can't grow and learn to work with the difficult ones if you aren't put in those situations," I have worked with the difficult ones. This Authority is a whole different ball game. He had no approval of any task unless he completed it himself. Maybe one day, he will be able to see that; just maybe, someone else on the team might have a better idea and choose to have the team implement the better idea. He is also the authority type, the smartest person in the room, but he cannot see that 1% of the time when someone else's idea could solve all issues.

Always be transparent

Last but not least, leaders should be transparent. Similar to Broad Candor, I feel that secrets at work are a waste of energy. If you, as a leader, are having difficulty navigating a situation, tell your team. It helps us understand why you might be more on the short-fuse side, and you never know; maybe someone on your team might have advice for you because they have been there or an idea you hadn't thought of. If someone else on the team is getting their butt handed to them by management, tell your team. I don't mean to tell the team how crappy of an employee management thinks they are. I mean something similar to: "John Smith is getting a lot of flack from management and might be a little more stressed out. Do what you can to try to be extra helpful." Yes, you should get John Smith's permission first. Transparency should also transverse to things relating to the leader. Honest feedback on why that person on your team didn't get the promotion or the same raise everyone else did. In case you're wondering what Authority looks like in this case, it looks like secrecy and outbursts on all fronts. It also looks like you, as the employee, are not getting to advance through the company because whatever is holding you back is not being shared with you. You know when they are keeping secrets. You can almost feel it, like walking into a tense room.

I hope that maybe reading this has caused an inner-evaluation of how you work with people at work and how you treat other people. Also, be aware that you don't need to be in a management position to be a leader. Leading from the back is one of the most rewarding things to do and a great confidence booster. Helping to lead your equals to their own greatness is a feeling you can only experience directly from that interaction. Regardless of whether you are a worker-bee employee or in a management role, you are worthy of giving and receiving this type of treatment. If you feel like your manager role personnel are not only falling into the Authority category but also the Inappropriate or Bullying category, please, please say something to your Human Resources Department or your manager's superior. Do not let mistreatment go unchecked. Not only does it most likely mean that other people are being mistreated, but it is simultaneously allowing you to begin to carry around baggage from the trauma of that awful work relationship. No one can protect you better than yourself.

Repeat after me.

I am kind.

I am smart.

I am important.