Metamorphosis from Manager to Leader

Recently, I shared my views with Benedict Paramanand, publisher of Management Next...

- on how organizations can build leadership capacity, what it takes to transition from a manager to a leader and the role of coaching in this metamorphosis.

 
How can organizations build leadership capacity?
Economic uncertainty is the “new normal”, something we have not seen since the Great Depression. In mature economies, the imperative to “think different” and aging demographics has created a huge need for leadership in organizations and society.

In emerging markets, it is an issue of organizational maturity. With their focus on chasing market opportunities and rapid growth, companies simply have not had the time or made an investment on leadership development. In these organizations, a small number of world-class leaders at the top are guiding a large population of followers.

The result is a leadership vacuum across the organization. Companies are now are asking themselves, “are we still nimble and are we losing our competitive edge to capture opportunities in the market?” This is huge!

Likewise, in society, we need a lot more leadership to think of complex issues such as corporate greed vs. societal good or social responsibility, how to build communities and participate in nation building. The Anna Hazare phenomenon is a good example.

There are no pure managers and pure leaders. What is the secret to having the best of both the worlds?

I’d like to think in terms of percentage of time people spend in their day-to-day role on managerial vs. leadership activities.

In my view, managerial functions include things like process, structure, reporting, tracking operational metrics and instrumentation through feedback mechanisms. The focus is more on the “how”. Managers are critical in any organization to maintain predictability, reduce risk and bring only incremental change.

Leadership functions include identifying new market opportunities, technologies, products, services, providing vision, building a strategy, setting direction, as well as defining metrics and guidelines that managers can execute on. Leaders relentlessly pursue new possibilities by looking out of the window to ask “what next”.

How can an organization build its leadership capacity? By giving people more time to contribute to leadership functions. This requires making management systems more efficient and predictable by creating a culture and reward systems that honor high-standards, trust, accountability and competence. 

The funny thing is, in order to improve management systems, we need to bring out the leader in each person and nurture their creative ideas!


How do you determine if a manager has leadership capabilities before putting him/her in a leadership role?

It is very simple. If a person has been a good manager, it is likely that they can define processes well, motivate people, excel in execution and drive predictability. 

Key questions to ask if they are ready for a leadership role are - whether the person has put up their hand to be a “change agent” on risky initiatives, whether they can inspire and influence people to put their trust, energy behind their ideas, vision and strategy.

In a knowledge-based global economy, CEOs are craving for new ideas. Spark matters! A good question to ask would be, “is this person a thought leader?” Domain expertise, understanding market shifts and technology inflection points is key. Curiosity, hunger to learn and networking ability, both within the company and in the industry is critical.

Managers can get by without being great communicators. Not so, as a leader. As humans, we are all tribal beings. A good way to test if one can inspire others is to gauge their storytelling abilities. Even the gifted Steve Jobs practiced for over a month before an event such as the iPhone launch.

Leaders perspire, so they can inspire others! That’s what this it is all about!


What mental and emotional shifts happen while managers transition to leadership roles?

Quite a bit.

Managers typically execute on direction set by others. On the other hand, a leader sets the direction. This is a major shift. Managers like stability and order. Leaders shake things up and thrive on change and uncertainty. The uncertainty factor brings a lot of fear. Without a spirit of adventure to say “why not”, managers will never transition to leaders.

Managers thrive on their analytical prowess and ability to build predictive models based on cause and effect analysis. Often times, when there isn’t adequate data, as a leader, one makes bold decisions based on intuition.

Even good managers get confused between motivating and inspiring. One motivates others primarily through encouragement, frequently leveraging rewards and incentives. But to inspire others, one needs clarity, self-belief and the ability to touch the heart and soul of people to ignite their passion. This is what leaders do.

A simple self-test for a person to determine if they are leadership material is to ask themselves, “if I were to start a company, what unique expertise do I have and can I inspire others to join my team”? This can be a scary question for many managers to ask of themselves!


What role can a coach play to groom a person into a leader?

Coaching is different from mentoring. A mentor is typically a subject matter expert that a mentee reaches out to, for advice and guidance on an informal, ad-hoc basis. On the other hand, a leadership, life, business or sports coach engages in a formal relationship with a coachee and enables them by asking powerful questions, to help them discover their full potential by being their “true authentic self”.

This is exactly what Gary Kirsten brought to the winning Indian cricket team that won the World Cup with his coaching philosophy - “I always endeavor to influence players in a positive way and give them options so that they can grow both as cricketers and as people”.

A great example of coaching is the contribution made by Phil Jackson in helping Michael Jordan become the “greatest basketball player” of all time. We all know Michael Jordan was a tremendously talented basketball player. 

However, in his first few years with the Chicago Bulls, although he was the league’s highest scorer and averaged 45 plus points in a game, his team lost in the National Basketball Association championship playoffs, because Michael was being surrounded by multiple defenders in the opposing team. 

When Phil Jackson joined the team a few years later as coach, he asked Michael a simple, yet powerful question, “Michael, do you want to be a hero or do you want to win championships”? He then went on to inspire Michael to discover himself through Zen Buddhism techniques. He encouraged him to build “leadership capacity” in the team by raising the capability levels of other players.

The result was that the opposition could no longer predict who in the Bulls team would handle the ball at any time, since there were so many competent players in the team. Michael continued to be the league’s most prolific shooter, but also became the league’s most valuable player in both defense as well as number of assists.

Phil Jackson was able to inspire Michael to graduate to his “full potential” from being a great basketball player to a great all-round player and leader of the team to synergize “1+1=11” and keep the opposition guessing. The result - Chicago Bulls won the championship 6 times with Michael. That’s the power of a coach!

The return on investment from a coaching engagement is huge. Coaching can simultaneously help individuals fulfill their career and life ambitions and enable organizations build leadership capacity to scale their business.

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Ram Kedlaya is an executive coach based in Silicon Valley and India. He is founder & CEO of Group Tminus, a global leadership development company that brings unique insights from executive experience across 17 countries in start-ups and Fortune 100 companies.