I’ve recently had several conversations with business “leaders,” those in managerial roles which have repeatedly, well shocked me. Here are just a small number of things I’ve recently been told:
A senior director of a healthcare organization told me that “I still have a lot of money in my recruiting budget, why should I be worried about retention”?
Not long ago, a manager informed me that he had to “council” the on-call team member for trying to rally the troops in response to a major equipment failure – at the cost of $60,000 of lost production per hour.
Two separate employees ordered the same very expensive parts for a project, the manager just shrugged his shoulders.
In yet another project, the expensive motor was included in the inventory, but was not in the parts room. It had been checked in, but not moved, and was found destroyed from rust. Yet, no one was asked to account for their inability to take care of expensive and hard to procure part.
Surprised by the lack of attention to the financial implications, and their overall impact on the bottom line, I’m pretty sure my responses have been something like this:
😶😯🤯
To say that I was shocked by these comments is a bit of an understatement. Is this the root cause of why our organizations are in such a state of distress? Does no one in the management team give a damn about the financial implications of their decisions? It begs the question, why are all of these managers seemingly so oblivious to their fiscal responsibilities?
While working on my MBA, the biggest moment of truth and realization for me was in the finance class. The professor told us that managing the finances was our real one and only obligation: the ensure the financial viability of the organization. What? I thought, I'm not here to be a financial person, but in my role I quickly learned that he was 100% correct. Now, I have the financial acuity of a gnat, yet this lesson however has stayed with me all these years. As leaders within the organization we have an obligation to be good effective stewards. Daunting as that is --did I mention that I have financial acuity of a gnat—it remains a powerful lesson in that everything, every decision, every action regardless of the operational area has an impact on the finances.
This lesson of financial stewardship has clearly been lost on today’s business “leaders.” And, I believe there’s much more to it than just this lost message:
1. There's a seemingly increasing belief that managers/leaders must have all the answers,
2. The on-going misunderstanding that managing and leading are two different things, yet both are equally important,
3. There is a lack of team member and manager relationships, inhibiting dialogue and trust thereby enhancing point one above,
4. A failure of organizations to develop their team members. In my tenure of leadership development, my frequent challenge was to help executives overcome the idea that only those promoted should be privileged to development.
The Archetype Learning Solutions leadership model: Shared Leadership is based on the best-practice of leadership the participatory model. It’s never too soon to begin developing your team members. Research has proven that those who receive leadership development specifically become better organizational citizens, even if they do not move into formal positions. Leadership is a series of actions, based on an influence relationship. It is not a title and certainly has no place for ego. Using your organizational leaders, regardless of title, can help create the sense of urgency to spark positive momentum and change!
The Shared Leadership curricula examines the important relationship between managing and leading, looks at the “how and why” of each, and introduces the SEEM framework for engaging team members.
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