The Uninspiring Manager
It’s not my job to make you want to do a good job. Everyone wants to do a good job. It’s my job to make it easy for you to do a good job.
A recent article created a little bit of discussion, which all seemed to be focused on one aspect: inspiration. The discussion broke into three general factions. One faction started the debate. They believed that I was a heretic for even suggesting that leaders needn’t be inspirational. “Isn’t that their entire job?” came up more than once. The second faction was a group that tried to bridge the two sides. “A rousing speech is only one way to inspire people. Being a great teacher or visionary or community builder is inspiring in their own way, just like Matt says” is a good example of that argument. And the third faction was just me, scowling in silence at a conversation that my gut knew was wrong, but my brain couldn’t explain why.
After a good night’s sleep and a bit of thinking, the why was a bit more nuanced than I expected — hence this article. I talked last time about leadership being the act of influencing and guiding people. To what end? Companies make it explicit, but leaders of all forms are usually leading in some direction, even if that direction is as amorphous as “people are happy” or “provide value to customers”. And to get there (or to…
