I do a lot of work with leaders, helping them to shift from a manager's perspective to a leader's view. One of the assumptions behind the principle of leadership is that the best way to develop your people is through coaching.
I have always bought in to this, although as a coach myself it is inevitable that I will see the value of coaching as a powerful tool for bringing about excellence. This might be why I have barely questioned my assumption that coaching is preferable to teaching. I just accepted that teaching, as a largely one-way relationship based on the idea that one person has the information and the other person doesn't, was inferior to coaching.
The comment of a client last week caused me to reassess. He said "At this level of management you still crave to be taught. Why aren't our bosses teaching us?"
Middle managers like this client take the brunt of the blame for what is wrong with business. More senior leaders see this level as obstructing change. More junior colleagues see them as ambitious and self-serving. This is a generalisation, of course, but no one can deny that middle managers have a less than positive reputation.
Yet, here is a man who is probably quite typical, saying that he wants to learn. And the people he wants to learn from are his senior managers. The problem, of course, when he looks at them closely is that he realises they don't really know what they are doing either! They may know the theory but they don't walk the talk. They have managed to get ahead despite their behaviour rather than because of it in most cases.
This is frustrating to someone who is keen to develop themselves. Where is the motivation if you see that people are promoted who do not live up to the stated values of the company? Even the most dedicated individual would find it hard to maintain a commitment to best practise in these circumstances.
I am starting to love the idea of leaders including "teacher" in their range of responsibilities. I would love for them to become far more self-aware, far more analytical of their behaviour and far more honest about the challenges they face and share this wisdom with their more junior colleagues. Yes, there is a risk they will appear weak but the truth is that a weak manager doesn't fool anyone anyway, whether he admits it or tries to pretend he knows what he is doing. Weak leaders may believe they have put their more junior colleagues off the scent but they haven't. Instead they are not taken seriously because they are seen to be frauds.
I hope that a new generation of middle managers will rise through the ranks and challenge the mystique and dishonesty that exists at the top of so many businesses today. Let's hope they aren't corrupted on the way up instead and decide "If you can't beat em, you may as well join em".
(P.s. My next book will be on this very subject, advising middle managers how to change their business from the inside. What other ideas do you have for addressing this problem?)
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