We’ve spent the last 25 years reading management books, trotting out celebrity CEOs on CNBC, and hailing Jack Welch as a genius.
- Why don’t we have better leaders?
- Why isn’t employee engagement higher?
- Why are employees ready to bolt?
You would think work would be better and more meaningful in 2010 than it was in the 1950s and 1960s.
Back then, we had centralized organizations and top-down management styles. People wore suits and worked for money. Passion and meaning? It’s for hippies and beatniks.
Off the cuff, I wonder if something in our collective consciousness broke when our culture began linking work, money, and meaning.
Wasn’t it easier when the boundaries were clearer?
Are we better off now — with debt, consumerism, and a mucked up employee/employer covenant and a free agency employment structure w/o health & welfare benefits — than we were in the 1950s and 1960s?
Hm.
Tell me what you think.
52 comments ...wanna add one?
We’ve been parenting for thousands of generations….why don’t we have better parents?
I know. I know. People are assholes.
Hi Laurie
You caught me at a good time!
I think the answer may lay somewhere in between the objective of the employer (profit) and employee (fulfilment – around the world most are looking for fair pay, personal development, respect, friendly working environment and interesting work, albeit in different orders). Adding to this is the increasing complexity of work driven by the open market economy and the changing role of customers and stakeholders in corporate decision making – influenced by the rise in the voice of community media (e.g. social networks, forums, chat rooms, etc) – soon it will overtake broadcast media!
This rate of change is faster than most bureaucracies can cope with and if we think the GFC was a game changer, the changes which will result from global structural challenges will be eye openers! Think ageing population, changing social attitudes, the rise of the virtual worker, etc – like the GFC, the signposts are there now!
Taking a step back, how we defined leadership in the 1950′s is different to how we should define it in the 2010′s. It requires a different skill set and capability – a leader can be 18 years old! – but what hasn’t changed is that there are still very few ‘textbook defined’ leaders out there compared to the plethora of managers working to achieve the objectives of the employer at the expense of the employee!
Employee engagement will continue to decline in corporations, I would buy credit default swaps on that!
The best leaders (and companies) act in the best interest of employees not shareholders! That’s differentiation, that’s why there are so few out there!
I think you did buy credit default swaps in that. Your business model is great. No shortage of customers!!
I think one of the issues is that as our world started to move quicker, people expected culture shifts at work to happen faster, so all these different strategies on management were trotted out, but not necessarily given the time to succeed. We’ve also got to keep in mind that there is often times a multi-generational gap between leadership and employees. Baby boomers still have a largely “work first” mentality, while Generation Y expects a very even work/life balance.
I get what you’re saying but I don’t buy into generational thinking.
Laurie,
I think that was a rhetorical question…The latest stats show engagement at an all time low worldwide.
You and Bruno both hit it. We have also been “parenting” our employees and we have a love affair with the concept of scientific management. We took away people’s personal competence years ago and they are sruggling to take it back.
We don’t teach leadership in B school- we teach management.
One of the things I like about your blog is that you also like me tell me to get their personal shit together and participate in “leading” themselves.
Sometimes I think we get the leadership we deserve…
Personally there are parts about guys like Jack Welch and Ross Perot when he was at EDS that I liked- they were unambigous, this is how we roll, if you don’t like it go work somewhere else. That is pretty clear.
As a “former” HR weenie you also realize we have the most adversarial legal structure governing employee-employer relationships in the industrial world- most of it was written in the 40′s and 50′s and codifies lack of trust and treating employees like they are stupid…
Most people are stupid. I think we get into trouble when we assume otherwise.
Hmmm. So much time, so few great leaders, it’s sad ain’t it? I have a good friend who has worked with several leaders who managed to pair politeness and profit successfully. He names Michael Bishop, Richard Branson, Peter Drew and Frank Hope among them. So there is some hope (sorry Frank!), that great leaders can still be found.
And I once had the pleasure of working for a guy named Mark Brinicombe. A fantastic boss with great leadership qualities. Mark was someone who managed to combine meaning with work. I recently wrote about my experiences with Mark, and if you and your readers are interested, you can read the short story via this link.
http://stopdoingdumbthingstocustomers.com/leadership/courtesy-at-work-works/
Thanks, Doug!
Wow. That’s a lot to chew on after a sleepless night with baby.
The collective “we” — beatniks and boardrooms and bedknobs and broomsticks — made it okay to no longer be personally responsible, at work or at home.
We gots to get that back. We all have leadership roles in life, be ourselves and/or with others.
Kevin, didn’t someone leave a comment on your FB wall about how “our society” produces these leaders? It was a pretty harsh comment but had the ring of truth. Do you remember that?
We lack personal responsibility and project are issues (and our failures) on others. I know that I need to be a better leader if I demand better leadership. It’s just so damn hard.
Also, I think Jethro Tull and Rush ruined it for the rest of us.
Oh wait, are we talking about music or leadership?
Laurie:
First of all so glad to finally meet you this week. And I love the question you posed yesterday and above because I have been thinking about it a lot.
Especially, “Wasn’t it easier when the boundaries were clearer?”
I think the above answer is probably yes, but what makes our current environment so difficult is that we have such a diverse workforce now as compared to the 50′s and 60′s and that diverse workforce brings differing expectations to work and our leaders whom are not trained to deal with leading diverse populations )or anything else for that matter) fall smack on their faces.
So, then we pile a bunch of strategies, initiatives, programs, and management theory on them….and that really gets them (leaders) confused because as you say, the boundaries are so blurred between work and money.
I am still pondering the subject but love the discussion.
Thanks for making me think!!
Cathy Martin
See you in Atlanta in October!
No, thank you for making me think. It was an awesome HR Happy Hour and made me work my brain in a way that is uncomfortable. Didn’t you see the smoke from my ears? Hear the wheels creak? xox
Jack Welch is, and has always been, about Jack, first and foremost. Big ego. I’ve never thought he was particularly genius at anything in his professional or personal life. And now he’s out to make a buck in the for-profit education game. I’m not impressed.
Jack Welch is not my fave.
Hi Laurie,
It was great to meet you during #hrfl10 and I really appreciated your input during @SteveBoese HR Happy Hour.
I’m actually old enough to remember the 60′s (I was in pigtails in the 50′s) and on a macro level, there are so many differences in business practices in the past 4 decades. Post WWII, the US had 75% of the world’s GDP (think about that for a minute), companies could still be run like Alfred Sloan’s model and many ex-military headed up large companies (and those who served were now employees). People actually remembered and were influenced by the Great Depression. CEO’s could afford to take the long view and most of them were trained internally with only a very few coming out of B-schools. Strategy? It was not even a subject offered at universities.
Fast forward. We got our clocks cleaned by Asian efficiencies but managed to get ahead because Americans are incredibly motivated to succeed. Then, some bright spark at Harvard or elsewhere intoned the phrase “maximize shareholder value” and it all went to hell in a handbasket. Suddenly, it was okay to downsize, re-engineer and de-layer. CEO’s rewards came from tying compensation to share price not product, service or inspiring employees.
It’s going to be a long road to find a sustainable model but some companies have made the change and their names don’t all begin with “Z”!
So good, Barbara. You should take this comment and make it into a blog post.
You manage paper and stuff, and you lead people and like it or not there is a big difference. Yet there are few people within companies that recognize that and have the courage to demonstrate it and mean it.
First, there’s still a whole lot of nepotism in the corporate world. There are “leaders” CEO’s, CIO’s, CFO’s, bfds, that talk out of both sides of their mouths and can’t set their egos aside. They promote and position their mini-me’s- because it’s safe for them. They pull out their to-do list and tout their book of moment from the NY Times best seller list, have folks read it and POOF! Their culture is healed or at best annoyed by another latest and greatest with no glue to make it stick being shoved down their throat. Those pics (people in charge) got to where they are, in many cases, by not treating people with respect, dignity or using their inside voice. And having known many many many of them, they are quite comfortable with that management style and best seller book or not, they are not about to change anything anytime soon. And that shit rolls downhill pretty fast. All the way to hiring managers, supervisors and team leads that get away with the most gawd awful attitudes and dictator mentality. Because that is how they are treated behind closed doors. A friend of mine recently told me what her BOSS told her during her weekly beating, er I mean meeting. “Jane it is your job to lift me up.” Really? Shut up and stop being silly and treating people like they ought to be your servants. Or go buy yourself a damn forklift.
Oh snap. That is MY company. Thank god my boss is great. His bosses? Your comment nails it. Seriously, that should be copy/pasted into anonymous emails to all of them.
I’m going to tell that to everyone who asks me to do something.
“Go buy yourself a damn forklift.”
It’s just the perfect response.
We can thank the Baby Boomers/Me Generation for the lack of leadership— from the “Don’t trust anyone over thirty” to The Age of Greed. If it wasn’t for 70 million entrepreneurial Machiavellian “Me First—at any cost!” attitudes permeating our society— raping our economy to it’s foundation— then looking to blame it on anything other than themselves— no wonder no one trusts any form of “leadership” these days.
We can also thank them for ruining music.
You may have written off the cuff your point of “our collective consciousness being broke when our culture began linking work, money, and meaning” is well said. It maybe our work/life balance expectations are askew to our psyches.
Work = pay = producing and life’s meaning and purpose is not driven by external factors but an internal revelation not necessarily tied to work.
I did write that off the cuff. Thank you. I like your math.
MattyMat- well said. “no wonder no one trusts any form of “leadership” these days.” Iknowtoo, that it started long before the Baby Boomers; there are decades of Me First at any cost- and clearly it’s alive and well now. Most people will do anything to put braces on their kids teeth.
With so many “Who Moved My Cheesy Chicken Soup for the One Minute Managers with 7 Habits?” management/leadership books out there, it’s easy to think that anybody can be an incredible leader after a few chapters from the guru du jour or completing a three-day leadership training course.
Leadership is incredibly hard work. Not everyone can do it. Anybody can label themselves as a leader but very few of them deserve followers.
I wish we’d stop idolizing gurus and start trumpeting the real leadership that’s done by average Joes every day. Write a book about the single mom who works 13 hours a day as a supervisor, has employees who would run through walls for her, and then still has time and energy for the friends/spouse/kids for whom she works in the first place. She’s a leader and a hero. Put her as the lead story on CNBC. Give her the $10,000 an hour keynote. Her hard work helped the Jack Welch’s of the world get their corner office. It’s time that she finally got hers.
I want to read that book and see that keynote.
It’s one of those “best of times, worst of times” situations. Life in many ways is so much better than it was in previous generations. Advancements in medicine, technology etc– we really have it pretty good comparatively. But society has digressed in other ways and it shows in our leaders. Plus, in this YouTube/Twitter/24 Hour news environment, when one of our leaders does screw up, people will most likely find out (just ask Slick Willy) and that is something that previuos leaders didn’t have to worry about. Hopefully the Millenials will learn from our f$%k ups and do better when they are in charge.
Very Dickens. Agreed. But Millennials are poorly educated and can’t spell. They can’t do shit. (Just kidding. Sorta.)
I think many of the great leaders do not want to step into a CEO role of a large company.
They stop their career advancement before they achieve that level, or if they are interested in becoming a CEO, they start their own company or they become a CEO of smaller company.
they start their own company or they become a CEO of smaller company
I’m living this.
I was talking with my husband about something similar the other day- the average number of jobs held by a person over their lifetime now vs. 50 years ago. I think that topic goes hand-in-hand with what you mention above.
Self-fulfilment has definitely changed how employees feel towards their work. My grandfather and my father would have never dreamed of trying to feel fulfilled at work- they put in a good day’s work to take care of their family. End of story. Maybe you’re right, maybe it was easier when things were more defined.
The other thing is that companies don’t take care of their employees in the same way, so the satisfaction is fleeting and loyalty isn’t there. My grandfather spent his entire career with GE and was able to retire with a pension. Now we’re lucky to get health care but we expect our companies to take care of us in other more touchy-feely ways, to grow us based on our dreams and potential. In the old school, they didn’t care about whether you felt fulfilled or like you were being groomed for the future- did you want a job or not? Shut up and work. And somehow it worked, for a lot of folks.
I keep waiting for these more progressive generations to start making real change. Most of the people in our government were young in the 60s, yet pot is still criminalized and gay marriage is such a drama- I lose hope that meaningful change will happen. When I get entrenched in ridiculous HR debates about dresscode b.s. it makes me want to poke my eye out. We have employees who cry everyday because they hate their jobs so much and lost productivity, business objectives, strategic planning to deal with- yet we are really making such a big deal out of capri dress pants and more than 1 earring in an ear? Who cares?!
For myself, I am a Gen X/Y cusper. I have had several jobs and have not yet had the pleasure of working for a good leader. They seem to be as rare as a double rainbow…
Kris, why aren’t you blogging? This is great.
I have no evidence to back this up, so take this with a grain of salt. I believe humans have always sought meaning in their lives, though not always from their toil. Before this change you speak of, I think most of us saw work as a means to an end.
Somewhere along the way, we found we had more leisure time and we began thinking about meaning, happiness and worth. Somewhere along the line we were presented with a choice of how to spend our work lives. We no longer had to work our liege lord’s barley fields. It was choice coupled with the increased educational investment individuals had to make that conspired to give the concept of meaning of work some traction in modern society.
With choice, comes the responsibility of basing said choice on something. Why not meaning?
Why not meaning? Sure. Why meaning from work?
There are lots of great leaders out there. They just aren’t in charge of the workforce.
Great leaders are not wanted in top management positions, if you ask me. People who can make lots of money regardless of the human costs are. People who can trick others into thinking that they are the Messiah are.
I have come to believe that the greatest leaders sit outside the status quo, become disaffected workers, and go out on their own to make real change in the world.
They come up with satirical names for themselves like “Cynical Girl” and lead their flock to ponder what is real and essential and ludicrous.
And they regale us with stories about their pee-cats.
Do unto others as you would have done to you. Until those in the “think tank” remember this simple golden rule, leaders will continue to forced to toe the line, spew the rules and kick butt and take names.
It’s truly that simple.
Leaders need courage and the ability to engage followers. That means standing out and up for some of the tough decisions. Often too much thought about collaboration and consensus. leading by definition is just that. To lead is to have vision, imagination and the ability to make it happen.
It has always been thus!
Courage is in short supply.
I think we have more managers in our organizations than leaders. I believe WWII produced many good leaders, as the the discipline, courage and commitment to be successful in combat translates into good leadership qualities.
Today I think we have many more managers than leaders. Leadership is motivating others towards change. Many heads of organizations today are not very inspiring or lack the ability to motivate other. Primarily because many are not willing to put forth the amount of effort it takes to be a great leaders, which I think is the biggest problem. Primarily because people are taught management, and not leadership. Great leaders are passionate about their companies.
Some argue leadership cannot be taught, but I disagree. I don’t everyone can be taught to become a great leader, but everyone can be taught to become a better leaders.
I agree with the teaching principle. We’re life-long learners. Let’s get to it.
I need to proofread my thoughts before I post them, yikes.
I believe we don’t have better leaders because the first priority for corporations has been making more money (capitalism); therefore, standards of ethical behavior decline accordingly. When the latter goes, so does faith in leadership. Employees may not inherently know it, but they don’t believe or support a leader who lacks integrity. Chaos ensues. Who’s the “leader” of a business ship whose crew mutinies?
Those that read enough history knows it has taught us that when men (and women) rely upon themselves, then everything will eventually fail… Humility, humbleness, willingness to accept correction, willingness to reach when needed and necessary are struggles everyone, expecially leaders, struggle with…
Since the early 1960′s, progressive methodologies and viewpoints have been prmoted and slowly embraced and accepted because of looking what wasn’t working rather than looking at was and improving upon that… Government involvement in every facet of our lives was fortold by Orwell’s 1984 and we beat that by a decade… and now the governemnt is becoming so big that any form olf leadership has been lableled as anything but leadership… all in the effort to stifle leadership to follow the ways of progressives…
Men and women of all cultures and many countries have written and shared many principles… yet none are new… they are not reinvented…. the already exist… in the most bought book, that everyone says we must have… and yet few ever open…
There are some very successful people in our country — and many leaders… the difference between them and those that are not are usually in the book they have chosen to read that others let collect dust…
forgive the spelling errors in my previous post… should have typed this in Word, corrected and then posted…. DOH!
Mick Sanders brings up a good point…. about WWII and leaders….
Trying times bring out the worst and best in people — those that have prepared themselves for coming situations in a way of a fortified good attitude, a discerning justice and solid backbone have been the best leaders during times of strive…
Good attitude, justice and backbone – as compared to any atttitude, fairness and appeasement… Creating a win-win situation is good but has its limits when one – or both sides – are focused onbeing self-serving. Fairness has proven to lack any sense of discerning justice as those that have earned their own ways end up carrying the dead-weight of those that do not…. Appeasement? Is nothing more than failure on the installment plan, eventually everything is worse than what was originally there….
An interesting note about the WWII leaders – allies and axis alike… Most of the axis leaders were what we call vegetarians, health nuts, had phobias about germs and even a greater phobia about weakenesses on every level… and they didn’t smoke….
The ally leaders were mostly beef-and-potato eaters, would rather spend a day in conversation with friends, family and/or colleauges (or reading a book) than work out, had good personal hygiene but not obssessed about it… and all smoked cigars…
I say let’s have a great BBQ and picnic this weekend, turn off anything electronic but music into the air (NO videos) and light’em up boys and gals…
Too easy to look backwards to the grass is greener past. The social changes that brought about the workforce changes also had positive impact on that workforce (and society in general). Their were clear boundaries, your right, but those boundaries weren’t particularity positive for women and minorities.
During my career in the Marines, I witnessed several great leaders. At the heart of their greatness was their motivation.
Psychologist will tell you that there is a significant difference between individuals who seek mastery and are motivated by intangible benefits (like service) and those who seek short term performance and are motivated primarily by tangible benefits (like money).
We as a community, have shifted our focus (and tools to motivate) to tangible benefits and accepted the limits of performance based leadership.
To get better leaders we need to find people with a mastery goal orientation who will be motivated by the intangible benefits of service to the community.
Mike Zeliff JWT INSIDE