Busted by Ashok Soota

Author:Ashok Soota
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: null
Publisher: HarperCollins India
Published: 2023-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Part 3

Busting Myths about People and Organizations

11

We Are Under-Led and Over-Managed/Over-Led and Under-Managed

PETER DE JAGER

We tried to find the originator of the myth ‘we are under-led and over-managed’, and all we could find were tons of articles and blogs propagating the same idea, with no one claiming to be the oracle who first made this statement. The conclusion we drew is that the statement gained strength through gurus who, in order to emphasize the importance of leadership, chose to denigrate management. This is quite a familiar pattern in management books/writings. For example, if an author wants to emphasize execution and implementation, they will go overboard and make it sound like the only thing that’s needed for business success is execution.

The stream of articles on this myth has created a backlash, leading to the opposite myth: we are over-led and under-managed. One example of a guru who propounds this is Jim Collins.

Both groups choose definitions that suit them, leading to non-sequitur reasoning that leadership is more important than management or vice-versa. But to quote G.K. Chesterton, philosopher and writer, ‘all generalizations are untrue, including this one’.

We will describe later why both these camps are misled, but first, let’s examine the reasoning each of them use to propagate their arguments and line of thinking.

Under-Led and Over-Managed

Let’s start with the under-led and over-managed group, and ‘leaders have a tendency to praise success and drive people, whereas managers work to find fault’.1

There’s ‘a game-changing difference between managing and leading,’ says Jeremiah Sinks.2 ‘Businesses are managed but people are led. A great leader gets the willing participation of others to follow a vision,’ he explains.

Here’s another from Brigette Hyacinth. ‘Leaders command respect. Managers demand it.’3

Or take this: ‘A good leader puts the interest of their followers before their own and measures success by whether their follower is better off.’ We want to ask, ‘and managers don’t’?

Yet another quote: ‘Leaders recognize that everyone is motivated differently. Managers, on the other hand, believe people will be motivated if you pay them enough. Leaders understand that pay is a satisfier but not the only motivator.’

If you define leadership in this glorified way and negate management, you can definitely claim that leadership is greater, or better, or more important than management.

Perhaps the most encompassing and most misleading or erroneous is the following table:

Managers have subordinates Leaders have followers

Managers use an authoritarian style Leaders have a motivational style

Managers tell what to do Leaders show what to do

Managers have good ideas Leaders implement good ideas

Managers react to change Leaders create change

Managers try to be heroes Leaders make heroes of everyone around them

Managers exercise power over people Leaders develop power with people

Most of the above are convenient definitions to further the argument that leadership is greater than management. One point is completely erroneous. Most literature says that leaders have great ideas, while managers implement them. The point we find most amusing is that ‘managers have subordinates’ while ‘leaders have followers’. The concept of leaders and followers is great for social media, but

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