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I'm pretty cynical about the endless stream of HBR articles on this 'leadership' topic. There is no formula and there are endless variables. Most larger organi

I'm pretty cynical about the endless stream of HBR articles on this 'leadership' topic. There is no formula and there are endless variables. Most larger organizations suspend management in a vacuum of lack of knowledge of decision making above them, which leads to a lack of trust from the people they are 'managing'. Add in politics and feifdoms, and the safest route to longevity for big corp mid managers is to camouflage themselves within the organization, not making any decisions unless and until it's clear which way the wind's blowing. Bravery around innovation and pushing better practices all too often results in punishment or worse, with most emphasis being on magically doing more with less while increasing revenue. Smaller business entities are far more human and real, and good 'leadership' in these environments is more sensitive to humans, effective innovation and growth ...

maxxxxx 9y ago
" I'm pretty cynical about the endless stream of HBR articles on this 'leadership' topic." Their business model is to make people into leaders in exchange for a big sum money...
- candiodari 9y ago
  You mean make existing bad leaders feel good about themselves. Provide a trivial thing to "work on" on a weekly basis, so they can "do something". This article identifies the basic problem again: there is no way to manage like this without at the very least a good working knowledge of the jobs you're managing. If you can't simply take over for an employee, you shouldn't be allowed to manage them. And you can't : you can't tell when you're being bullshitted, and worse, you can't tell when a psychopath is really fucking with the organisation (maybe he's right and these other guys, who just happen to be in competition with him, are really the ones that are bad ?). A good leader needs to engage and provide feedback on the work done. Well, yes. A "manager", an MBA from any business school has no ability to do that. They just can't. That isn't what they trained for, unless you mean keeping cash registers in a store or perhaps basic logistics (advanced logistics requires knowing the math behind things like linear programming, so you can modify it for your exact situation AND being pretty good at writing predictive models). This is also the most common problem, and of course why management theory keeps "believing" that management is a job like others (and therefore doesn't require knowledge of other jobs). There's no money in telling a manager that they need actual, real knowledge, something that would take years to acquire. And you can't change that perception because the people who would have to do that are the ones who would never measure up.

maxxxxx 9y ago

" I'm pretty cynical about the endless stream of HBR articles on this 'leadership' topic." Their business model is to make people into leaders in exchange for a big sum money...

candiodari 9y ago
You mean make existing bad leaders feel good about themselves. Provide a trivial thing to "work on" on a weekly basis, so they can "do something". This article identifies the basic problem again: there is no way to manage like this without at the very least a good working knowledge of the jobs you're managing. If you can't simply take over for an employee, you shouldn't be allowed to manage them. And you can't : you can't tell when you're being bullshitted, and worse, you can't tell when a psychopath is really fucking with the organisation (maybe he's right and these other guys, who just happen to be in competition with him, are really the ones that are bad ?). A good leader needs to engage and provide feedback on the work done. Well, yes. A "manager", an MBA from any business school has no ability to do that. They just can't. That isn't what they trained for, unless you mean keeping cash registers in a store or perhaps basic logistics (advanced logistics requires knowing the math behind things like linear programming, so you can modify it for your exact situation AND being pretty good at writing predictive models). This is also the most common problem, and of course why management theory keeps "believing" that management is a job like others (and therefore doesn't require knowledge of other jobs). There's no money in telling a manager that they need actual, real knowledge, something that would take years to acquire. And you can't change that perception because the people who would have to do that are the ones who would never measure up.