The Bus Driver

How many times are you with a group of friends that are talking about how great their organization is, how inspiring their leadership is, and what a great manager they have?  I have noticed lately that most conversations are focused on how their organizations are taking advantage of them, putting them down, and how their organizations are promoting people into management that have no idea how to manage.  

Several years ago, I read the book, “Good to Great”, by Jim Collins.  In that book, Collins talks about getting the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and then getting    the right people in the right seats on the bus.  The bus is a balancing act.  If you have great leadership but the wrong people it doesn’t work.  If you have great people and no leadership it doesn’t work.  If you have both then you can develop a culture of self-motivation, creativity, and accountability.  Once this is accomplished then you can drive the bus anywhere.  

The first step in loading the bus is finding the drivers, the leaders.  It seems that we have a great shortage of natural leaders.  Is this because we are waiting for people with natural leadership skills to come along?  Do we need to be proactive and develop leaders or do we need to work on environments that inspire leadership? Jerry Winberg defines leadership as:

Leadership is a process of creating an environment where people become empowered.

I believe that organizational success will depend on empowering all levels of managers to be leaders. When most managers begin their careers they are not expected to be leaders.  They have usually been promoted for being good at their job.  For organizations that want to lead their industries, it is not enough for managers to provide rules and regulations to employees.  If they want to attract top talent and retain them, leaders need to inspire an atmosphere conducive to change and provide learning and guidance to their people.  Great leadership will drive individual development, teamwork, and culture.  

References:

Collins, J. C. (2001). Good to great: Why some companies make the leap--and others don't. New York, NY: HarperBusiness.

photo credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/beginasyouare/6878609231/">Mike_tn</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/">cc</a>