Leadership and Employee Engagement

Mitch McCrimmon — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 10:46:15 -0500

The usual initiatives to engage employees are paternalistic. They merely scratch the surface because they leave the conventional heroic leadership model in place. The problem with heroic, transformational leadership is that the more heroic the leader, the more dependent employees can feel.

Is Emotional Intelligence Really Essential for Leadership?

Mitch McCrimmon — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 17:43:18 -0500

It's become a truism today that leaders need emotional intelligence. But this "fact" assumes that leadership means being an executive. Of course, anyone in a position of responsibility needs to be trustworthy and sensitive to the needs of stakeholders.

However, what are we to make of an important aspect of leadership, namely challenging the status quo to promote a better way? Wasn't this what Martin Luther King was doing when he challenged the US and Alabama governments to end segregation on buses?

How Leadership Works

Mitch McCrimmon — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 09:37:36 -0500

Is leadership a role, a type of influence process or a relationship? Is it a combination of all three or something else altogether?

Leadership as Role

Why is it so hard to differentiate leadership from management?

Mitch McCrimmon — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 16:30:06 -0500

Despite many valiant attempts to separate leadership and management, most people equate them or mix them up in one way or another. The problem is that we think of the person in charge when trying to separate leadership from management. This is like trying to differentiate sales from marketing by observing an entrepreneur who runs a small business and personally handles all aspects of sales and marketing. It’s easy to separate these functions in a large organization if for no other reason than because they are carried out by different departments.

Is Heroic Leadership a Thing of the Past?

Mitch McCrimmon — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 09:45:14 -0500

The idea of heroic leadership has become something of a dinosaur in recent thinking. When people attack this notion, they have in mind senior executives who think they have all the answers, who take all the credit and who call the shots without consulting colleagues. This is a rather self-centred, egotistical or narcissistic image.

Comment on Node ant

Mitch McCrimmon — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 17:12:33 -0500

The key point I am trying to make is that leadership is often portrayed as an influence process but this idea, in most people's minds, is that it is the person in charge who is doing the influencing. This way of looking at the influence process automatically gets associated with the whole conventional leadership concept of not only influencing people to act differently but also helping them reach a goal.

How Leadership is Like Selling

Mitch McCrimmon — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 11:31:31 -0500

Leadership and selling are both forms of influence. They differ primarily in the fact that selling is self-interested. It’s a way of making a living. The salesperson is interested in making money by selling products or services. Leadership also influences people to do things they might not do otherwise, but is not self-interested. For example, a green leader like Al Gore promotes more environmentally friendly living by pointing to the benefits for the environment. He is not selling a product to make a living.

Why “Leaders” Can’t Fully Empower Employees

Mitch McCrimmon — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 10:43:17 -0500

“Leaders” can’t fully empower employees as long as we continue to associate leadership with position, whether senior executive or “team leader”. Organizations desperately need to empower employees more fully in order to foster more innovation faster. But they won’t get as far as they need to until they start recognizing that front-line knowledge workers who promote new products are showing bottom-up leadership and that the role of the person in charge is to be a facilitator, coach, developer, catalyst or enabler.

Comment on Node ant

Mitch McCrimmon — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:23:27 -0500

Leadership may require charisma if your image of the leader is a chief executive or country president. But the Director of R&D or Finance is more likely to lead based on technical knowledge or professional competence and credibility, with or without charisma. More importantly, I define leadership in such a way that it has nothing to do with being in any sort of leadership position. I think all employees can lead by example, just by doing something better than their colleagues. If their colleagues follow suit, then they have been shown leadership even if those showing it have zero charisma.

Comment on Node ant

Mitch McCrimmon — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 11:14:42 -0500

I have a rather different take on how to differentiate leadership and management. I think leadership is an influence process with the aim of promoting a better way. For me, management is a much more positive force than it is for most people. I see management as getting things done through people. For me, managers can be empowering, supportive coaches who can be just as inspiring as leaders. The only difference is that leaders inspire us to change direction while managers inspire us to work harder or smarter. In my view, leadership has nothing to do with managing people or getting things done.