LEADER /MANAGER DICHOTOMY .

Leader believes in and dies for his conviction irrespective of outcomes. On the other hand a manager is understood to be the one who give results irrespective of conviction and beliefs. How do we then resolve this dichotomy of a manager-leader? From a commonsensical view point, a rational choice is made when both the subjective and the objective conditions are fulfilled. The subjective condition pertains to the willingness condition (to make a choice) and the objective condition relates to the ability condition (to make the correct choice). In other words is an incumbent both willing and able to take up managerial responsibility. We can then start with examining the conventional way in which managers are made.
The making of a manager (post selection) usually starts with induction and training. This enablement is transformed into what we shall call the can aspect via imparting skills, imbibing knowledge and providing technical support.
However can is by itself, passive. For the rubber to meet the road, we need another aspect that we shall call will. This (will) consists of the managers attitude, conviction in the chosen path/task and personality (in terms of locus of control).
Broadly speaking following four types of people who could be categorized in the setup and be given the treatments as one desires.

Proficient Managers /(Natural Leaders)

Politiking Managers / (Schemers)

Confused Managers / (Disrupters)

Unusable Managers / (Impeders)

• PROFICIENT managers are gold dust for the organisation. And like gold need to be conserved polished and preserved. They are envied and are the cynosure of all eyes. They are prospected by the head hunting fraternity and therefore are difficult to retain. The internal environment can contribute significantly to their acquiring their polish and glitter in their own eyes. Hence, retention of the individual (bullet-proofing) is the main strategic theme for human resource management. This involves rewarding such managers in four dimensions:
  Economic: Their remuneration must be comparable to the best in industry and must give them sufficient cushion and comfort to concentrate on their job. The organisation looks to maximise return on effort for such managers. This could entail giving stewardship of challenging and high risk projects and tasks.
  Sociological: They must be given due recognition and status both within the organisation and projected as stars outside it. This could also entail giving stewardship of high visibility and impact projects within the organisation.
  Political: They must be given sufficient independence authority and leeway to envision, construct and pursue their designs.
  Psychological: Their self-esteem, pride and belongingness needs must be suitably addressed so that their level of satisfaction and indeed delight with the job must be of a high order.
  There are obvious dischotomies in the generalization above! In resolving those, lies the art of managing such valuable human resources. For instance the balance between high risk and high visibility projects as well as the balance between envy and adoration of peers. From an organisations long term perspective this genre of managers are volatile since:
  They are prone to seek fresh pastures and continuity of long term actions through them are in jeopardy.
  They may tend to over value their skill sets, since this is what made them proficient in the first place, and may quickly fall out of synch in emerging demands. As a corollary, these managers may tend to plateau the organisational performance at sub-optimal level.
  They require more than a fair share of organisational protection e.g. fast tracking, closeness to power centers and mentoring.
  In terms of HR interventions, the organisation needs to consciously search, develop and nurture such potential as long as they last. This could take the shape of well laid career plans, duly backed by job rotation, and formal training outside the organisation, even back to academics, for knowledge enhancement.

POLITICKING Managers are in the worst case either unethical or distructive (in the short term) since they pursue an agenda discordant with the organisational lief motif. They are inherently extremely capable but use their knowledge and acumen to further their own agenda and any benefit to the organisation is an incidental by-product. In the hands of these managers, knowledge is power takes on a sinister meaning! For human resource management, this is the headache genre since it involves making the proverbial horse drink water. Again, managers may have arrived in this box more as a result of earlier HR interventions. Hence, protection of the organisation (damage-containment) is the main strategic theme for human resource management. Whereas radical surgery (amputation) may appear to be the easiest option, the attendant problem is the loss of knowledge, experience and acumen on the one hand and attendant signalling (arising from more sinned against than sinned syndrome) and public sentiment on the other. Therefore:
Structurally this can be achieved by positioning such managers in the region or area where the risk of possible damage is least. Monitoring can be reinforced by suitably customised MIS and a dynamic performance review mechanism.
Behaviorally this can be achieved by employing behaviour-modification techniques particularly for managers in key and sensitive positions who are not replaceable in the shorter term. These could include reinforcing, scheduling, shaping, generalization-training and discrimination-training.
Functionally the best bet is to create another centre of knowledge for planned replacement of the incumbent in any position of authority. In many cases, this very action could cause a change in behaviour.
From an organisations long term perspective this genre of managers are not necessarily a matter of serious concern.- except in terms of opportunity loss. They would generally tend to stay on since the position they hold is within their comfort zone.

CONFUSED Managers typifies Shakespeares full of sound and fury signifying nothing and their behaviour is reminiscent of headless chicken: they mistake activity for achievement. Usually they are intensely loyal (in the sense that they are well intentioned) wearing their heart on their sleeve but are completely oblivious of the purpose or appropriate means to an end. The Brownian movement nature of their activities disrupts the smooth work flow though they ultimately arrive at their destination. As a wag once put it, they are best gifted to the competition or to the enemy!. However, it is quite possible that in this genre lies gold ore if not the polished material. Human resources would do well to adopt enablement as the main strategic theme. This enablement can be attempted through:
Skill enhancement via the usual training and development routes, taking due care to customise for a best fit for the desired objective.
Re-skilling and re-orienting in line with the changed organisational requirements, helping them let go or replace or their old (mistaken) beliefs. Job rotation could be a viable option.
Providing mentorship to shape and groom them into becoming proficient managers, provided they demonstrate good learning.
Job-rotation
From an organisation long term point of view HR practitioners would be well advised to sift and sort this pool of human resource before taking any intervention decisions. The chosen few will make the grade as proficient managers whereas a fair number would fall off the table. In any case, constant small step intervention is called for to minimise the effect of destruction. Special care has to be taken that any intervention does not blunt their zeal.

UNUSABLE Managers are the arch-typical dead wood and they plateau in a position of incompetence a la Peter Principle. They hardly contribute to an organisations progress either in terms of spirit and enthusiasm or in terms skills and knowledge. Being relatively immobile (mentally and physically) they impede an organisations progress and consume disproportionate time and effort in getting things on track. They are relatively un-employable (due to lack of contemporary skills and competence) and not re-deployable (due to lack of willingness to learn). Some caveats are in order:
It is worthwhile to remember that they have been recruited and nurtured by the organisation and have contributed to the organisations progress at some point in time but are currently unusable.
It behoves human resources managers to make a good (re) assessment of this pool as a starting point before finally affixing a label. It will be wise to keep in mind the recency and horns/halo effects.
Organisations stop at training i.e. the act of imparting but accompanied by very little emphasis on impact assessment of training. It is only likely that training has to be followed up with re-training since no training has permanent relevance. If training and retraining is not constantly done, learning power atrophy sets in and this can be contagious.
Having arrived at a conclusion, human resource strategy would necessarily center on separation, (humane or otherwise). In an age where the erstwhile structured organisation is being slowly dis-embodied/virtualized, HR strategy must go beyond the conventional mode; leaders must start thinking outside the euphemistic box and as Bernard Shaw once said they must be prepared to be constructively illogical.

Dr. Satish.