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?

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.

To clarify my point, I wanted to share a picture of the ad with you. My cell phone took a really crappy picture so I thought I would check the facility’s website. Amazingly there is a page dedicated to store specials and there is a small version of the flyer on that page (at least for now because they change it every month). That version of the circular doesn’t help illustrate the point because it’s too small. But they’ve apparently thought things through enough to allow you to click through and acquire a .pdf version of the ad. Click! Grrrrrrrr. The .pdf version is the circular from LAST MONTH. Come on!

I’m a nice guy, so I decided that I would let them know about the problem by submitting a comment about their page. My first problem there is that “location visited” is a required field. I don’t have a problem about a location, I have a problem with the website. Well… let’s fill it in anyway.

OK… where the hell was I? I was driving from point A (which I know the name of) to point B (which I also know the name of) but I never had the need to remember what city or town I was in when I had take a piss. So why would I want to look at a list of cities? I’d much rather look at a list of states and then cities. But I’m just being harsh I suppose. Eventually I find out that there is only one location in Michigan, so I chose that one! Let’s fill in the comment itself. And you know what, I am feeling so nice, I want to give the technician who’ll be working on this problem the actual url to the page.

So what exactly am I suppose to make of this? Is this the list of characters that I can’t use, or the list of characters that I can use? Because when they tell me “alpha-numeric,” I’m thinking letters and numbers and I know that letters and numbers are fine. So if letters and numbers are fine and the site is telling me something in relation to letters and numbers, then it should hold that everything else in this list should be fine. Not! Too bad for the technician that needs to fix the .pdf problem. I don’t have enough time to turn into a pro-bono consultant for inept thinking so I’ll leave the shitty form feedback for another day.

Now as you’ve been reading this, I know that you’re thinking that I’m just being picky. Admittedly there is a very fine line between being picky and being hyper-aware. Where that line sits has a lot to do with your environment. If you work in an environment that thrives on improvements and yearns for being the best, then expressing your concerns would be welcome and you are being hyper-aware. If you’re not in that environment… get another job.