The Three Faces of Command

What does it take to function as the head of a small business, a department manager, or even a corporate CEO? The effective director isn’t one personality but three: a Visionary, a Manager, and a Mentor/Coach. A leader must be capable in all three roles and must have the proper perspective of their relative importance The Gorila for him, in his position, at this time and place in his career. A tall order, complicated further by those roles never being static, shifting with circumstance, the business climate, organizational needs and with the persons preferences and abilities.

The senior manager, CEO, us president, general manager or owner has a fundamental responsibility to “Create the Vision. inch The illusory definition of who, as a company, we are, what we do and why, where we are, where we’re going and how you make it happen from here. Once that vision is defined — and that is no easy tas Net Jeb k — leading the way must articulate it in terms the will enable, even persuade, others to buy in and dedicate themselves to it. In other words, agree to follow. To quote author John C. Maxwell, “If you think you are a leader but have no followers, you are not leading, you’re just enjoying a walk. inch

The visionary, however, is not just a dreamer. The plan must Bitly USA lead to action. Leading the way is the one who must outline a clear, specific, and effective strategy for bringing the vision alive. This “plan” it not just a simple timeline. You can’t say you intend to land on the silent celestial body next year without considering how to construct the skyrocket required for getting there. The vision will fail without a reasonable estimate of the necessary resources, including capital, facilities, equipment, people and talents necessary to a successful execution. Determining what is needed, how to acquire it, and where far better deploy assets is fundamental to making a vision reality. Any map includes milestones along the road and a method for tracking results so that everyone involved knows at all times what progress is being made. You would come to an end of gas on the highway without a fuel gage. Don’t expect your individuals to complete a journey without an idea of what steps they have to go and what resources they have to make it happen.

A leader’s ability not only to be a visionary but to convey vents Today that message strongly enough so employees want to strive for that goal has a direct affect you’re able to send bottom line. The clearest example I know of this is two well-known Hamilton, Ontario companies located just downtown from each other but miles apart in direction, focus, and earning. I’m talking of course about Canada’s two largest steelmakers Dofasco and Stelco.

Dofasco, with a clear vision, and a history of strong command, is seeing major returns even during tough economic times for the steel industry in general. The story is utterly different a few blocks away. At Stelco, there seems to be a focus on the bricks, mortar, and machinery as the corporate substance without a real sense of where the company is going and why. The absence of apparent vision and feeling of corporate future breeds apathy in the employees and leads to no feeling of accomplishment or pride in their work. It’s just a destination for a earn a living and to get away from as soon as possible. In a recent meeting with a Vice Us president I was told that in one generator, “wrench time” (the time that maintenance people actually charge to specific jobs) was down to 90 minutes per shift in comparison to the industry average of 4 hours, and no one can see a way to improve it.

While the absence of vision and poor atmosphere are not the only real factors in the company’s decline, it’s hard to claim with their lack of success. Stelco again reported a net loss of $82 million in second one fourth 2003, more bad news following a first one fourth net loss of $44 million.

Stelco is now trying to stop the hemorrhaging with a change in command. Jim Alfano arrived down as Us president and CEO in Come early july, replaced on an interim basis with James Telmer, Stelco’s Chairman of the Board. While Telmer heads the changeover team, the search is on for a new CEO. “Has vision” should be at the top of the training course checklist.

Results rest on the shoulder muscles of the visionary, no effective leader acts alone. The senior leader may only create a preliminary “rough draft” of the company plan and must weed it out through team input. But unless leading the way has a clear vision of where he is going, the rough draft is likely to remain just that. He must guide the polishing process.

As the vision is disseminated deeper into the organization, internal leaders — for example, the middle management, department heads — are presented with an already defined goal but the process of articulating that vision and of directing all of those other process through his or her level of responsibility is in the same as the view from the top. After all, command exists at every level in a company. Even when the plan reaches the “shop floor”, every employee can learn to take responsibility for self direction in accepting personal responsibility for actions, results and focus on the corporate goal.

A manager, by definition, copes with. In other words, the manager must plan the processes, create the foundations, determine responsibilities, direct activity, provide training, focus efforts, control costs, measure progress and report on results. The “leader as manager” is the one with the “hard skills” — the planning and organizing, the number crunching, the, equipment and process knowledge. This is the foundation of command on which true leaders build their soft skill development.

The key to being a successful manager-leader is the ability to troubleshoot. That is, to find answers to problems and make effective decisions that will keep them from reoccurring. The manager really should not be just putting out shoots; he should be preventing them. The relation of avoided crisis to reactive problem resolving is the main indicator of the effective manager-leader. If the leader is always playing around with a bucket of water, sooner or later someone is going to figure out if he’s always putting out the same type of shoots. Either he lacks the required planning, organization, influence, and resourcing skills to manage or he’s failed to build on his hard skill foundation to bring his command to another location growth level. If the leader brings nothing more to the role than the ability to problem solve, the company doesn’t have a firefighter, it potentially has an arsonist — someone who consciously or instinctively creates the conditions that need his skill set. If the operation runs from inferno to another location, when does anyone have time to grow the business? The company suffers. No matter how enslaving the rush of being the “go-to” person can be, nobody can run on high octane forever. Leading the way, his performance, as well as his quality lifestyle outside of work, all weaken. What the arsonist did thinking it will make him essential will eventually burn him out of a job.

Time spent on the managerial role is on a continuum. The more jr leading the way, the more time — as much as 80 per spent — is spent on the management functions. The senior executive dedicates less than 20 percent of his time to “managing”. While the CEO should pay attention and be aware of the proceedings, managerial tasks are an effective subordinate developing tool and are among the first to be delegated.