Why Leaders Really Do What They Do

By Alex Yatskov
This is about my speculations in response to John Kotters article What Leaders Really Do, and the tips from John Kniffin my first and most amazing Leader-Manager, who changed my life and became my mentor. It was interesting to compare the perspectives of the Harvard professor and the executive, who excelled in his in the trenches knowledge and spoke from his own guts.

What John Kniffin Told :

A good manager is a (Zen) master, leader, king and teacher. A true master is not the one with the most students, but one who creates the most masters. A true leader is not the one with the most followers, but one who creates the most Leaders. A true king is not the one with the most subjects, but one who leads the most to royalty the king being the person with power and who fosters power in others. A true teacher is not the one with the most knowledge, but one who causes the most to have knowledge. A manager is best when they are egoless. He or she can be no more effective than functional (as a human being), as opposed to dysfunctional. What limits the effectiveness of a manager is their ability to be a fine, caring human being and his or her ability to be technical.

Not Leader Management

I agree with my mentor: a good manager should be a leader. It is hard to imagine how the risk taking leader could be successful without administrative power to implement his or her innovations. Interestingly, John Kotter also says: "companies rightly ignore the recent literature that says people cannot manage and lead. They try to develop leadermanagers". Since both Johns (and myself) agreed that manager should be a leader, first of all I wanted to explore why people become a not leader-managers. Why would people become a manager? Is it for money, ego (power, success, recognition, rewards, control, for fun), or for something new? Most people want to become a manager because they think it is the logical next step in their career and their success (the sooner, the better). Most of the managers, who I met, viewed management as a promotion. I found it very amazing that many young engineers, who had not achieved engineering maturity, not even basic engineering skills, would strive to become a manager. I saw them turning down basic engineering assignments to avoid being considered a worker bee. At the same time they would love to be loudly present at the endless meetings and conference calls, showcasing their readiness for management. After achieving their goal, the nonleader-managers would be trapped into a fairly boring life of corporate politics. Their

engineering decisions are often free from risk and brilliance. I would call it the state of the least resistance, status quo, a survival technique. After reading John Kotters article I think that non-leadership is also the state of mind.

What Brings People into Leader-Management

What does it take to become a leader-manager? John Kotters article showed us the methods, employed by real leaders, but did not explain how they became them in the first place. Let me attempt to fill that blank. What I discovered two years ago, changed my life, moved me and my family from the one coast to another, and set me at much higher level of performance and satisfaction at work today. Here it is: the only compelling reason to become a leader-manager is to direct and inspire creative work at a higher level and with much less obstructions. Leader-to-be candidate should have the following qualities: Rock solid technical competence and creativity Ability to endure ambiguity and make decisions with insufficient information Good balance of thinking and feeling Broad systems thinking business, marketing, project management, trouble shooting Trust peoplekeeping track without hovering. Passion. Never satisfied with the way things are constantly wanting better from everything and everyone. Not 10% improvement, go for the 10X gain. See everything as a project Set goals that are ambitious and achievable Pragmatic Like being around people and working with them It is my belief that most of the true leaders do not do what they do for money, career, ego, power, etc. They simply want to grow talents, and excel in their mission, no matter whether its high tech business, education, charity, religion, etc. They cannot achieve their grandeur tasks alone, but their uniqueness, emotional intelligence and sense of true direction draws a lot of people to join them - to become Masters themselves... That outcome brings true leaders to the highest, possible for the human being, level of accomplishment and ego-less satisfaction.