{"id":1755,"date":"2014-04-28T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-04-27T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wwwneu.strehle.de\/tim\/weblog\/archives\/2014\/04\/28\/1712\/"},"modified":"2014-04-28T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-04-27T22:00:00","slug":"1712","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/weblog\/archives\/2014\/04\/28\/1712\/","title":{"rendered":"The idealist\u2019s guide to leadership in the real world"},"content":{"rendered":"

Are you an idealist? Then you\u2019re probably daydreaming of getting a say in how your organization is run<\/a>. Once you have access to the decision makers, your great ideas will be heard, and you\u2019re going to change the world together!<\/p>\n

Well \u2013 unless you\u2019re working for an exceptional organization, you\u2019ll soon find out that the movers and shakers spend most of their time debating rather mundane details. The really important discussions are postponed or don\u2019t result in decisions or actions. Yes, your great ideas will be heard but not much is going to come out of them. Everything will seem to move very slowly. (Except for the occasional surprising move that must have been decided upon when you were not in the room.)<\/p>\n

What\u2019s going on? This group of people could change almost everything for the better, yet nothing much happens. What about their passion, creativity, dreams and visions? Or at least, what about the pressing problems that call for swift and strong action?<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what I learned about leadership realities from repeatedly failing to make a difference in \u201cleadership teams\u201d (as the idealistic but powerless guy):<\/p>\n

Who said it matters.<\/strong> A lot. As the expert from the lower ranks, you often won\u2019t be taken seriously. They can ignore you just fine regardless of what you said. The words of the powerful inevitably have a lot more weight.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re here for the quick wins.<\/strong> This quarter\u2019s project, this year\u2019s money matters. Soft targets like culture or customer satisfaction are less important than hard money and an easy to calculate ROI.<\/p>\n

\u201cBest practices\u201d don\u2019t matter.<\/strong> You might be enthusiastic because you finally found the perfect book or article: proof that what you\u2019ve been talking about all along works great for others! Sorry, you will still have a hard time getting people to even think about it.<\/p>\n

Facts don\u2019t matter<\/strong> as much as you think: Your well-researched data can easily be dismissed with some anecdotal evidence or inapt metaphor. Because:<\/p>\n

People aren\u2019t rational.<\/strong> Most of the time, feeling right is more important to humans than actually being right. (My theory is<\/a> that engineers are more likely to reflect and analyze rationally because that\u2019s an important part of their job.)<\/p>\n

Everyone believes their own lies and exaggerations<\/strong> \u2013 the stories they\u2019re telling themselves. People get into the habit of bending the truth a little (it\u2019s done, we have a great company culture, our customers are loving it) because they\u2019ve got to sell something, and soon start living in their own made-up universe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You cannot convince a group of a dissenting opinion.<\/strong> No matter how well-reasoned your opinion, it needs time to sink in, and groups reinforce the majority\u2019s belief (\u201cgroup think\u201d). Changing people\u2019s minds<\/a> is hard.<\/p>\n

They don\u2019t really want to know<\/strong> because they\u2019re afraid of change and discomfort. No-one\u2019s intentionally blind, but they’d rather look elsewhere than face an inconvenient truth.<\/p>\n

Priorities can kill anything.<\/strong> Often they won\u2019t say you\u2019re wrong: They\u2019ll say you\u2019re right but there\u2019s more urgent problems, so let\u2019s take care of this later. (Later, of course, there\u2019ll be new high priority issues\u2026)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to do something\u201d doesn\u2019t mean it gets done.<\/strong> Even if they agree on doing something, decisions and actions will be postponed whenever possible. Minimal or fake action (scheduling a follow-up meeting, promising to write a concept) is enough to make everyone feel the problem has been addressed.<\/p>\n

People don’t understand other people\u2019s jobs<\/strong>, and don\u2019t bother trying to. The CEO probably doesn\u2019t know what the QA guy is doing all day, and that\u2019s fine with him.<\/p>\n

Some are doing work they don\u2019t love<\/strong> and aren\u2019t passionate about many aspects of their work. Yes, even in upper management.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re only striving for \u201cgood enough\u201d<\/strong>, not for perfection, so what they get is mediocrity and they\u2019re either fine with that (as long as it makes money) or telling themselves they\u2019re great.<\/p>\n

The real values will eventually surface.<\/strong> Honesty. Humility. Empathy. Taking responsibility. Trusting and developing and empowering others<\/a>. Genuinely caring for customers and employees. Is that really our leaders? (For example, most people are okay with lies as long as it\u2019s them who\u2019s lying.) Sooner or later, you\u2019ll find out.<\/p>\n

Do I sound bitter? I don\u2019t mean to. Just needed to write this down so I don\u2019t forget the lessons I learned. (And I\u2019m noticing I\u2019m guilty of some of the above as well\u2026)<\/p>\n

I\u2019d love to hear from you: Please teach us your tricks if you succeeded in hacking leadership. (I\u2019m not giving any advice here because I failed at it\u2026) Don\u2019t stop being idealistic, keep changing your part of the world for the better!<\/p>\n

(Inspired by the German article Mist im Management<\/a> by Klaus Schuster, and many other gems linked to from this blog.)<\/p>\n

Update (2016-10-20):<\/em> Ricardo Semler \u2013 How to run a company with (almost) no rules<\/a>: \u201cAlmost nobody who is in control is ready to take leaps of faith.<\/strong> It will have to come from kids and other people who are starting companies in a different way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Are you an idealist? Then you\u2019re probably daydreaming of getting a say in how your organization is run. Once you have access to the decision makers, your great ideas will be heard, and you\u2019re going to change the world together! Well \u2013 unless you\u2019re working for an exceptional organization, you\u2019ll soon find out that the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weblog"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1755\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}