APS Quarterly: Spring 2004

Managers and Leaders: Are They Different?

Managers and leaders are two very different types of people. Managers' goals arise out of necessities rather than desires; they excel at defusing conflicts between individuals or departments, placating all sides while ensuring that an organization's day-to-day business gets done. Leaders, on the other hand, adopt personal, active attitudes toward goals. They look for the opportunities and rewards that lie around the corner, inspiring subordinates and firing up the creative process with their own energy. Their relationships with employees and coworkers are intense, and their working environment is often chaotic.

In this article, first published in 1977, the author argues that businesses need both managers and leaders to survive and succeed. But in the larger U.S. organizations of that time, a "managerial mystique" seemed to perpetuate the development of managerial personalities--people who rely on, and strive to maintain, orderly work patterns. The managerial power ethic favors collective leadership and seeks to avoid risk. That same managerial mystique can stifle leaders' development--How can an entrepreneurial spirit develop when it is submerged in a conservative environment and denied personal attention? Mentor relationships are crucial to the development of leadership personalities, but in large, bureaucratic organizations, such relationships are not encouraged.

Businesses must find ways to train good managers and develop leaders at the same time.

Subjects Covered:
Behavioral sciences, Business reading, Entrepreneurship, Executives, General management, HBR Classics, Human behavior, Leadership, Management development, Managerial skills, Managers, McKinsey Award Winners, Mentors, Organizational behavior, Psychology.

Putting Leaders on the couch

Although a number of business scholars have explored the psychology of executives, Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries has made the analysis of CEOs his life's work.

In this article, Kets de Vries, a psychoanalyst, author, and Insead professor, draws on three decades of study to describe the psychological profile of successful CEOs. He explores senior executives' vulnerabilities, which are often intensified by followers' attempts to manipulate their leaders. Leaders, he says, have an uncanny ability to awaken transferential processes--in which people transfer the dynamics of past relationships onto present interactions--among their employees and even in themselves. These processes can present themselves in a number of ways, sometimes negatively.

What's more, many top executives, being middle-aged, suffer from depression. Midlife prompts a reappraisal of career identity, and by the time a leader is a CEO, an existential crisis is often imminent.

Not all CEOs are psychologically unhealthy, of course. Healthy leaders are talented in self-observation and self-analysis, Kets de Vries says. The best are highly motivated to spend time on self-reflection. Their lives are in balance, they can play, they are creative and inventive, and they have the capacity to be nonconformist. "Those who accept the madness in themselves may be the healthiest leaders of all," he concludes.

Subjects Covered:
Behavioral sciences, CEO, Executives, Human behavior, Leadership, Management styles, Managers, Organizational behavior, Organizational behavior &leadership, Personal strategy &style, Psychology, Upper management.

When Followers Become Toxic

Leaders are vulnerable, too. That is, they can be led astray just as their followers can--actually, by their followers.

Sometimes, good leaders end up making poor decisions because well-meaning followers are united and persuasive about a course of action. This is a particular problem for leaders who attract and empower strong followers. These executives need to become more skeptical of the majority view and push followers to examine their opinions more closely.

At other times, leaders get into trouble because they are surrounded by followers who fool them with flattery and isolate them from uncomfortable realities. Charismatic leaders, who are most susceptible to this problem, need to make an extra effort to unearth disagreement and to find followers who are not afraid to pose hard questions. Organizational mechanisms like 360-degree feedback and executive coaching can help these leaders get at the truth within their companies.

Finally, unscrupulous and ambitious followers may end up encroaching on the authority of the leader to such an extent that the leader becomes little more than a figurehead who has responsibility but no power. There's not much leaders can do to guard completely against a determined corporate Iago, but those who communicate and live by a positive set of values will find themselves better protected. And because followers tend to model themselves after their leaders, the straightforward leader is less likely to have manipulative followers.

In this article, George Washington University Professor Lynn Offermann explores each of these dynamics in depth, arguing that leaders need to stir debate, look for friends who can deliver bad news, and communicate and act on a solid set of values.

Subjects Covered:
Behavioral sciences, Human behavior, Interpersonal behavior, Leadership, Management styles, Managers, Organizational behavior, Organizational behavior &leadership, Personal strategy &style, Psychology.

The Seven Ages of the leader

Leaders go through many transitions in their careers. Each brings new crises and challenges that are predictable. Knowing what to expect can help you get through and perhaps emerge stronger.

In this engaging article, Warren G. Bennis, professor and founding chairman of the University of Southern California's Leadership Institute, reflects on leadership, recounting his own experiences as a young lieutenant in the infantry in World War II, as the new president of a university, and as the mentor to a unique nursing student. Bennis also describes the experiences of other leaders he has known throughout his career.

Drawing on more than 50 years of academic research and business expertise--and borrowing from Shakespeare's seven ages of man--Bennis says the leader's life unfolds in seven stages. "The infant executive" seeks to recruit a mentor for guidance. "The schoolboy" must learn how to do the job in public. "The lover with a woeful ballad" struggles with the tsunami of problems every organization presents. "The bearded soldier" must be willing to hire people better than he is, because he knows that talented underlings can help him shine. "The general" must become adept at allowing people to speak the truth and being able to hear what they are saying. "The statesman" is hard at work preparing to pass on wisdom in the interests of the organization. And, finally, "the sage" embraces the role of mentor to young executives.

HBR CASE STUDY Leadership -- Warts and all

Does using Tyco's funds to purchase a $6,000 shower curtain and a $15,000 dog-shaped umbrella stand make Dennis Kozlowski a bad leader? Is Martha Stewart's career any less instructive because she may have sold some shares on the basis of a tip-off? Is leadership synonymous with moral leadership?

Before 1970, the answer from most leadership theorists would certainly have been no. Look at Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao Tse-tung--great leaders all, but hardly good men. In fact, capricious, murderous, high-handed, corrupt, and evil leaders are effective and commonplace. Everywhere, power goes hand in hand with corruption--everywhere, that is, except in the literature of business leadership.

To read Tom Peters, Jay Conger, John Kotter, and most of their colleagues, leaders are, as Warren Bennis puts it, individuals who create shared meaning, have a distinctive voice, have the capacity to adapt, and have integrity. According to today's business literature, to be a leader is, by definition, to be benevolent. But leadership is not a moral concept, and it is high time we acknowledge that fact.

Leaders are like the rest of us: trustworthy and deceitful, cowardly and brave, greedy and generous. To assume that all good leaders are good people is to be willfully blind to the reality of the human condition.

Subjects Covered:
Behavioral sciences, Ethics, General management, Leadership, Management styles, Managers, Organizational behavior, Organizational behavior &leadership, Personal strategy &style, Psychology.

HBR CASE STUDY Leading by feel Description:

Like it or not, leaders need to manage the mood of their organizations. The most gifted leaders accomplish that by using a mysterious blend of psychological abilities known as emotional intelligence. They are self-aware and empathetic. They can read and regulate their own emotions while intuitively grasping how others feel and gauging their organization's emotional state.

But where does emotional intelligence come from, and how do leaders learn to use it? In this article, 18 leaders and scholars (including business executives, leadership researchers, psychologists, an autism expert, and a symphony conductor) explore the nature and management of emotional intelligence. Their responses varied, but some common themes emerged: the importance of consciously--and conscientiously--honing one's skills, the double-edged nature of self-awareness, and the danger of letting any one emotional intelligence skill dominate.

Among their observations:

Psychology Professor John Mayer, who codeveloped the concept of emotional intelligence, warns managers not to be confused by popular definitions of the term, which suggest that if you have a certain set of personality traits then you automatically possess emotional intelligence. Neuropsychologist Elkhonon Goldberg agrees with professors Daniel Goleman and Robert Goffee that emotional intelligence can be learned--but only by people who already show an aptitude for it.

HBR CASE STUDY Left on a mountainside

Ed Davidson is on top of the world, literally and figuratively, at the beginning of this fictional case study. He's in the Swiss Alps, headed for Davos and his first experience as a delegate to the World Economic Forum's annual conference. And he has reason to believe he is about to be made president of his company, Carston Waite--and, therefore, heir apparent to the CEO position.

Then his phone rings. It's his mentor, Frank Maugham, the CFO and a board member at Carston Waite, calling to inform him of a major setback. "David asked me to let you know you are not going to be named president," he says. "At least not yet. He wants to stay close to the business." But Frank has a plan to change the CEO's mind.

Meanwhile, Ed feels betrayed and humiliated--and his desire for revenge against the CEO mounts. When the news comes that Frank's plan has failed and has cost Frank his job, Ed is already deep in a plot of his own. He's in Davos because David had to back out; Ed is supposed to deliver the CEO's remarks in his stead. But why not use this opportunity on the world stage instead to deal a parting blow?

A psychoanalyst, a psychiatrist, an executive coach, and a governance expert comment on Ed's state of mind and his best course of action. They are Kenneth Eisold, the president of the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations; Dee Soder, the founder and managing partner of the CEO Perspective Group; Jeffrey P. Kahn, the CEO of WorkPsych Associates; and Charles M. Elson, the Edgar S. Woolard, Jr., Chair of Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware.

Subjects Covered:
Business reading, Career advancement, Careers &career planning, Decision making, Ethics, General management, HBR Case Discussions, Human resources management, Leadership, Management development, Managerial skills, Managers, Succession planning.

The HBR article "What Really Works" reviewed by our APS editor

This article sifts through the overwhelming supply of tools and techniques available to managers.

They have one goal in mind: simply, to determine, what really works.Two business professors and a marketing expert answer these questions.

In a ground-breaking, five-year study that involved more than 50 academics and consultants, the authors analyzed 200 management techniques employed by 160 companies over 10 years.

Their findings at a high level? Business basics really matter. In this article, the authors outline the management practices that are imperative for sustained superior financial performance -- their "4+2formula" for business success.

They provide examples of companies that achieved varying degrees of success depending on whether they applied the formula, and they suggest ways that other companies can achieve excellence. Without exception, the companies that outperformed their industry peers excelled in what the authors call the four primary management practices: strategy,execution, culture, and structure.

And they supplemented their great skill in those areas with a mastery of any two of four secondary management practices: talent, leadership, innovation, and mergers and partnerships. A company that consistently follows this 4+2 formula has a better than 90% chance of sustaining superior performance, according to the authors.

APS offers members a reprint of this article as part of our ongoing education program.

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