Over the past few years, I have had the pleasure of stepping into roles with increasing amounts of responsibility and opportunity.  Each of these steps have placed more and more team members into my care.  I’ve recently had to reflect upon things and it is this matter that I need to address.

Let us be clear, the number of individuals that report up to someone is not a measure of success.  Many managers measure themselves this way and classify the acquisition of increased headcount as a promotion.  To operate in this manner gives control of your success to those that have the power to approve requisitions.  What happens when the economy faces a retraction?  If you are a “manager” and find that you must face the unfortunate reality of letting team members go, does this get classified as a demotion?  Vying for position be ensuring that you have a lot of people reporting to you in an effort to ensure that your own position is secure is managing toward protectionism as opposed to growth.  People are smart.  Leaders see through this headcount manipulation.  It is not protection at all.

A leader will take time to consider whether they have the resources available to them to take on the added responsibility of adding members to the team.  This is because a true leader is not focused on themselves, but rather the success of those in their care and it takes a ton of energy and focus to truly lead someone.  Every leadership position that I have been in is driven by one main core principle.  Service.  When I dig into the idea of “service” from a leadership perspective, I generally start with major militaries’ use of the rank “Sergeant”.

Sergeant (normally abbreviated to “Sgt”) is a rank used in some form by most militaries, police forces, and other uniformed organizations around the world. Its origins are the Latin serviens, “one who serves”, through the French term Sergent. (via Wikipedia)

Generally, when one unfamiliar with the system thinks about the military, they generate in their mind a hierarchy of commands that come from the top down and nothing more.  However, the military cannot accomplish anything if those who serve do not have the proper tools and training to accomplish their tasks.  This is where the idea of Sergeant comes in.  When a directive does come from the upper chain of command, leaders along the way need to ensure that everyone is ready: that they have the tools and training necessary to carry out this command.

A servant leader in the business world is much the same.  I always lead my teams by ensuring that they have everything that they need to support the vision and strategy of the organization.  Beyond that, I hope to find time to grow each team member’s talents to the point that they could replace me at any given moment.  Herein is major difference between a protectionist manager and a servant leader.  A manager will hide just enough information so that they can remain in power while giving their employees just enough information to squeak by.  Since no one is really growing, the manager needs to hire more people to get more stuff done.  I believe that managers call this “job security.”  A leader will maintain an open rapport so that the team members can think critically and apply their own unique thoughts toward creating amazing solutions to problems.  Team members become very creative and very effecient and can handle harder challenges and more of them.  And please note, it is not a requirement to actually have team members reporting directly to you in order to show dedication as a leader.

Again; people are smart.  Even as I lead people toward levels that they can replace me, that just means that I have more and more truly amazing people doing amazing things for the company.  Other leaders in the company will realize this.  They will never say “what do we need him for anymore.”  Instead, they will generally recruit from my team because they too want truly amazing people doing amazing things for them as well.

I believe that a focus on service is a major part of my success, and I generally never focus or dwell on my own success.  I focus on wanting others to succeed and from time to time that means that I must offer my own experiences as evidence.

So… are you a LEADER or a MANAGER?

Some of you may not understand.  I love my job.  Every day brings with it new challenges and a constant drive to change for the better.  To keep up with the environment, you start to acquire new skills either by focusing on the need to develop them or by inheriting the skill through some form of mental osmosis.  This latter form of metamorphosis has started to lead me down the path of noticing things.  Maybe the following awareness test will help to explain a little.

If you didn’t see it, thank the loving scotoma wherein you simply don’t see that which you’re not looking for. This ability to “notice” things even applies to that which isn’t there but ought to be as in my cell phone adventure where a seemingly simple solution to something just wasn’t there.

It’s getting worse for me. Today I saw a simple advertisement in a gas station regarding a bluetooth headset. There was a picture of the headset next to a picture of a model wearing the headset. Actually, she wasn’t wearing it at all. She was wearing a completely different model. Out of all the things to notice, that’s what I picked up on.

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