Leadership Means More than Sitting in a Corner Office

There is a recurring theme in many companies: the disconnect between the message leaders think they are delivering and the one actually being received by employees.

Much of what is written today about “business leadership” focuses on the role of owners and senior executives, implying the corner office is the only place where it can originate. While it’s true that the people at the top can – and must – set the tone for providing leadership throughout an organization, the fact is the leadership role played by a plant manager or line supervisor is equally vital.

Indeed, leadership in the ranks may have more of an impact on the culture, productivity and profitability of a company than anything the CEO might do.

Take the case of a newly hired operations director who held a series of one-on-one meetings to get to know the plant staff. At one of these meetings, when a worker told him he had just become a new father the director responded, “There is nothing better than being there for the birth of your child.” The worker replied that he wasn’t allowed to “be there” for the happy event. “We were short staffed that night with two guys on holiday and three guys off sick,” he explained. “So when my wife called to tell me she was in labor and I asked my supervisor if I could go, he said no.”

Lessons Learned:

A raft of lessons can be gleaned from this anecdote. For one thing, the supervisor missed a huge opportunity to bring his workers together. Whether the shop was union or non-union, if the supervisor had asked fellow workers, “Fred’s wife’s in labor. Can we pick up the slack so he can go?” who would have said no?

Here was an ideal opportunity to build the team. Everyone could have put in an extra effort because this was a defining moment in Fred’s life that everyone could understand and appreciate, including those who weren't parents. Instead, the opposite happened. With Fred’s co-workers resenting the company for being so inhumane, the poor results of that night’s production were predictable.

What happened in this case also shows how the company culture allowed the supervisor to be disrespectful and heartless without intending to do so.

Executives constantly remind managers and supervisors to treat their staff with respect. Yet when a crisis hits or individuals are overly stressed, they default to criteria on which they are being measured. This supervisor – otherwise a very nice fellow – defaulted to the production numbers expected of him when faced with the challenging circumstance of already being below the optimal headcount for the night and facing the prospect of losing another body.

The Communication Conundrum

The fact remains that while we may judge ourselves by our intentions, others judge us by our actions.

Consider another example that illustrates that disconnect. Suppose, for instance, that an employee approaches a manager with a problem he or she is trying to solve. The manager – already very busy multi-tasking just to stay ahead – quickly solves the problem without getting input from the employee. The staff member mumbles thanks, inwardly seething and looking back in resentment when leaving the office. The manager wonders what’s bothering the worker; after all, the problem was solved. But the employee had been looking for help with finding a solution, not with simply having the problem solved per se.

The employee had seen this situation as an opportunity to learn, grow and develop. But, instead of showing leadership, the manager just wanted to get the problem off the desk and get back to other matters piling up and on which he or she was being measured.

Leadership is a matter of choice: yours. Your only choice is what kind of leader you will be.