The state of management

Welcome to another Discuss HR, the blog written by and for members of Human Resources UK.

Time is relative to each individual, but the thought we are about to enjoy the final Bank Holiday before Christmas is somewhat astonishing! The year has flown by for the group too, which has seen member numbers swell by over 50% which is fantastic.  On that note we are looking to grow the numbers of the blog writers, so if you are interested in joining the panel please let me know.

To the point at hand, today John Hepworth looks at why so many organisations treat leadership as a trait we are born with, rather than a trait we are capable of learning. (Ed Scrivener)

The state of management

What makes a good leader?

In recent months, I have been talking to a lot of managers. Some of them suggested that they were in fact ‘leaders’; many of them did not really understand what leadership meant in practice.

Management and leadership; leadership and management. They still seem to be inter-changeable in today’s business world: this, the world of amazing technology (is it only 30 years since the first pc was launched by IBM?), fluctuating markets and “Dragon’s Den”. You would think that by now, with management science being around for at least 150 years – and a good deal longer if we consider the ancients like the Greeks and the Romans – management and leadership would be a good deal better defined, and indeed understood?

I suppose that the simple answer to this question is that the term ‘general management’ is still not seen as a vocation and a respectable profession. Even when we re-brand it as leadership – perhaps as being focus on the future, rather than management of the present (insert your own definitions here – there are so many!) – this is often on the back of ‘entrepreneurship’. For instance, Richard Branson, James Dyson, Peter Jones et al – I’d bet that they are all seen as entrepreneurs, for who management and leadership comes from having a great commercial idea and sense of timing. Not that they get their businesses going through exceptional people management. When do you here any of them chatting about how better people leadership got them better results? I may have missed them, so forgive me, but I cannot recall such a focus recently. If anything, it is all about stocks and shares and their impact on earnings per share or some such (by the by, who selected the risk takers in the City?!).

In other words, management and leadership is a by-product of the original reason they got into business in the first place – to make money.

Even if I look at the not-for-profit sector, I would argue that many are still thrust into the management or leadership positions on the back of their own original vocation – be that nursing, local government or other public SERVICE.

My point I guess is that until organisations begin to value the development of managers and leaders in the same way that they value technical expertise in engineering (perhaps a bad example!), accountancy or supply chain savings, then the profession will still be the business bridesmaid, to quote a phrase.

So in the spirit of the positive psychology movement, what may be done in order to create a better image for the manager and the leader?

Turning aside the obvious process route – we know appraisals work, so do development plans, so does honest and fair disciplinary, and so on – the fundamental is that companies perform better when people are managed and led. And to select the right managers and leaders initially is a good start. It is without doubt clear that selection of managers and leaders is poor; when it does happen, then there is little or no support afterwards.

And I am not referring here to the larger companies in the UK. With over two million defined as small businesses, it is here that the selection and development of managers and leaders is at its worst. This sector needs to address this issue sooner rather than later and see selection and development of their management / leadership cadre as much more than ‘the job is yours because you know the product / client / customer’. People management through management and leadership is a worthwhile and difficult technical skill – but boy, do you see the benefits when it done properly. With the current economy, the survival and development of small businesses surely is the way forward, especially as most of us are employed in them?

SME management...

For the small business market, the Government incentives that include LMAS funding are welcomed but nearly every time I have used the facility supplied by LMAS, small companies do it because there is funding – and not because they need to improve their people skills. We need as a group of HR professionals to ‘sing from the rooftops’ about the benefits of selecting better managers and leaders – we all need to get ‘blogging’ about best practice and network to share the ideas that work. We need to show leadership and influence to prove to the clearly profit-focused and energised CEOs of this world that all elements of employee engagement are worthwhile – and that they come through good managers and leaders.

We have a responsibility to lead this debate and pull it away from how much funding is there, what free development is available and so on and be evangelical in our promotion. Management and leadership is a profession to respect and nurture – but let’s make a noise about it!

About the author

John helps organisations, especially in the SME sector, achieve competitive advantage.  He has a particular interest in translating strategic HR management into practice.  Typically, this has meant focusing his efforts on recruitment and selection, performance management and training and development activities.  John sees the challenge of matching the development of internal competencies with the externally driven demands of the market place as one of the key themes in developing organisational engagement, capability and performance.

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Discuss HR is the blog for Human Resources UK, the leading LinkedIn group for those involved with HR in the UK.  Next week’s Discuss HR will be published on Thursday 1^st September and will be written by Annabel Kaye, Employment Law Specialist.

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