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If you're a manager or a leader and all
you do is dream
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big dreams and think and talk about the
future in lofty visionary terms and
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you don't actually get anything done,
everyone is going to hate you. And meanwhile,
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if you're a person who's in the trenches
and all you do is sort of the logistical
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tactical, this is what we do tomorrow,
grunty stuff, and you never go up to the
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mountain top and say, "Here's our vision,"
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everybody is going to hate you.
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When I teach managerial skills, I refuse
to use the word manager or leader, and I've
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created this very unattractive word,
"Lanager," which, of course, is a blend of those
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two words because it's only academics who
debate what leaders do versus what
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managers do. And I actually believe from
living in the real world of business that
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there's really a blend of those two jobs
in real life. And it doesn't make any
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difference if you're managing three people
or three hundred thousand people.
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The very best people at the top of teams
or organizations are doing a little bit of
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managing and a little bit of leading.
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Hi. I'm Suzy Welch. I'm a professor of
management practice at NYU Stern School of
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Business.
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You can't execute or you can't ask people
to do what you're asking them to if you
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don't explain to them why you're asking
them to do it. One of my favorite lines, and
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I use it over and over again when I'm
teaching, is, "You have to tell the drummer what
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the words of the song are about."
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You can't just give the drummer the music
and tell him to hit it. He's not going to be
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half as good or she's not going to be half as
good as if they know what the song is
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about so they can put their whole selves
into it. This is what managers and leaders
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should be doing. Okay? Telling the drummer
and all the other musicians on stage what
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the words of the song mean, why you're
doing the work. And then,
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this is the how. Now we're going to execute.
And the job of the manager and the leader
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at the same time is to be going back and
forth between the why and the how and the
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why and the how, sometimes in one
conversation, and certainly always in the same
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day.
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Part of what makes you very good as a
person running a team in the lanager role
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is to be the simultaneous
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translator
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between your team and the people up there.
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When I see simultaneous translators at the
UN, and I see them going back and forth
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translating a conversation between, say,
the Chinese delegation and the Bulgarian
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delegation, and you can see how exhausting
this is, I think, yeah, that's the work
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of a good lanager.
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That takes diplomacy.
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It takes courage.
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It's more than being a messenger because
when you're a messenger, you sort of drop the
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bomb, you know, you say, this is what
they're saying up there, and you just sort of
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keep your poker face about it or you go up
to the top and you say, "Everybody really
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wants to work from home two days," you
know, blah blah blah, and then you just sort of
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stand there and you act like Switzerland.
You're neutral.
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The really good
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lanager,
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they are
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not just doing that. They are explaining
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both groups to each other, and they're
taking a stand. I mean, the worst thing in
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the world is a fingerprintless
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lanager.
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Leave no sign of what you really believe.
Okay? Everybody comes to resent that. You
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sort of agree with the last person in the
room. You've got to have conviction.
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It may shorten your career in some places,
but at least you stood on your principle
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and your reputation for integrity will
follow you.
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People hate making hard calls because
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when you have put your name with the
decision and then it bombs,
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your name's on it, and nobody wants to be
exposed to failure because generally people
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want to keep their jobs.
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But you have to develop this otherwise
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you will get a reputation for a person who
cannot be a leader. You can't move an
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organization forward if you don't make
decisions. You have to decide about pricing,
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market segmentation,
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branding. I mean, you just have to make
one decision after another. The hardest
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decisions, of course, are people
decisions. Who goes into what job and what they
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actually do. Don't get me started. That's
very, very hard. But once you failed a few
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times in business, you realize, oh, life
will generally go on. And I'll be able to
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say to my team, "Look, we did that once. It
didn't work. I own it. This is what I've
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learned." And the respect you get for
saying, "I made that mistake. I own it. This is
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what we learned" is unbelievable.
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And I think you sort of have to do that
once before you realize, oh, wow. That's
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actually so much more effective than
actually not even being associated with the
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mistake. Everybody makes mistakes. And
once you sort of say, "I made a mistake, I
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really learned from it." People are like,
"Oh, I really respect that person."
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Sometimes I finish the semester
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teaching about managerial skills and about
half the class is like, "We're out." It's
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hard. It's very easy by comparison to be
an individual contributor
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or to be, for instance, on a board where
you're just big picture. Okay. Those two
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different things are quite simple compared
to what a lanager has to do, which is
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both of those things at once.
