Someone once said, “To a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
Cowardly Leaders are hammers
As we have explored over the past several months, cowardly leaders have very little actual Leadership talent. To a cowardly leader, their employees are nails. All of them. Everyone is there for one purpose- to be beaten down, driven down, pushed back, and shown that the “hammer” has the power. Sometimes, if the nail-I mean, employee- is lucky, the “hammer” reconsiders. He actually pulls the nail up and straightens it out.
Employees are hammers too?
As you know, I’m a fan of James Altucher
In a recent blog, he had a twist on the hammer/nail theory: “Employees aren’t hammers. You pick up a hammer when you need to pound a nail and then you put it down when you are done. Tools are there just to help you. But with employers and employees, it’s a two way street. They are there to help me. But just as much, I am there to help them.”
That’s what a good Leader does, and how one thinks. Not only are employees not nails to be pounded, they aren’t tools to be used only when necessary. A true Leader recognizes that part of the responsibility of being a Leader is to provide support, training, advice, counsel, feedback, communication, and, eventually, hopefully- congratulations. One of the great Leadership truisms I remember from a book I read long ago came from Harvey Mackay. I’m paraphrasing a bit, but this is close:
“A Leader only has two real jobs: one is to remove all the barriers and obstacles that keep their people from being successful (my note: such as unnecessary reports), and the second is to get them all the resources and tools they need to do their job well. That’s it.”
Nothing in there about hitting people over the head because they are nails.
Liz Ryan, writing in Forbes, says, “One of the biggest “Ahas!” new and experienced managers (and the people who work for them) have experienced over the past few years is the realization that being a strong manager doesn’t mean being forceful or domineering.
It’s just the opposite — strong managers are strong enough to lead through trust, whereas weak managers have to use the force of their job titles to make people listen to them.”
She goes on to say that weak managers (i.e. cowardly leaders) are easy to spot, since they are the ones who keep their employees off balance with threats, unexpected firings, and the worry about keeping the manager pleased, rather than serving the customers and citizens.
Leaders lead with Trust
Cowardly Leaders are weak. It’s as simple as that. Due to their weakness, they rule. They don’t lead. And as rulers, their minions are the nails to their own powerful hammer.
True Leaders neither need, nor want, to manage a hierarchy in that way. As Ms. Ryan states, they don’t have to be right. They don’t even care whether or not they are right. All that matters is that the best course of action is created, articulated, and implemented.
To Cowardly Leaders, it’s all about the tools. To real Leaders, it’s all about the people. Tools aren’t even in the thought process.
II-42
