Being an Executive

There are three parts to this analysis of what it means to be an executive.

Part One: The Four Main Executive Functions:

1. Leading
2. Managing
3. Doing
4. Representing

Executives are appointed to roles of authority over resources. Their 4 main functions are occasional activities that are not, in themselves, roles.

We need to STOP calling executives leaders. Only executives occupy roles. All roles, including being a parent, being a lighthouse keeper or being an executive have certain responsibilities that they are expected to carry out. Roles, by definition, entail specific responsibilities.

Leading

Leading is not a role but an occasional activity that influences others to think and act differently. Leading means promoting new directions that entail a better way of achieving certain goals. Leading sells the tickets for a journey to a new destination. It works in one of 3 ways:

• Promoting new directions
• Leading by example, going first
• Engaging people in jointly developing new directions

Leading is something people SHOW, not something they ARE. Everyone can SHOW leadership in any of the above 3 ways. A front-line employee can lead by example, or by suggesting a better way or by facilitating discussions about a better way, thereby creating shared ownership of a change in direction. Executives can lead in the same 3 ways but it is not their exclusive domain.

Leading is a function, not a type of person or role. Our lungs also perform a function, so does boiling water. They are activities that serve a purpose. Leadership cannot be a role because everyone can show some leadership. It is not a type of person either. We need to beware of portraying leaders as types of people as that often leads to an image of a father figure or cheerleader. This rules out quiet leadership or the kind of leading by example that artists, inventors and musicians occasionally show.

Managing

Management got tossed in the trash by 1980's thinkers who were appalled by the Japanese industrial success in the west. They saw management as a scapegoat and called for leaders to take their place. This was a colossal wrong turn. We need, instead, to upgrade management. Like leadership, it is a function, an occasional activity that serves a purpose. Management is best thought of along the lines of investment   aiming to get the best return on all resources at our disposal. This makes management style neutral, not controlling or mechanistic as 1980's writers claimed.

Everyone manages, just like everyone can show occasional leadership. We all manage our time. When we take courses or apply for better jobs, we are trying to manage our careers. We want to make the best use of our time and talent to achieve our best possible life. This means managing ourselves rather than simply drifting. 
Everything to do with getting the best out of resources, people, budgets and material can be seen as an investment to get the best return. Managing people does not mean stifling innovation as 1980 s thinkers claimed. It means the opposite, empowering people and encouraging them to be innovative. This the best way to get the best return on intelligent knowledge workers and creative thinkers.

Doing

Executives have to make decisions and authorize actions, activities that only they can perform. Some executives are less effective than they could be because they overly enjoy doing things at the expense of leading and managing. As a result, they don t get as much out of people reporting to them as they could. Being too much of a doer can mean disempowering the people who report to them. Executives often say that they lead by example. This is a good way of showing leadership because we like to follow what people do more than what they say we should do. However, placing too much emphasis on leading by example can be too much like doing, working as an individual contributor, thus neglecting other aspects of leading and managing.

Representing

Partnerships have become increasingly important for success. Executives need to represent their organizations or functions with partner organizations, various stakeholders and government representatives. Working effectively with partners calls for knowing when to show leadership and when to manage situations efficiently.

Part Two: A Closer Look at Leading

The 3 ways of leading, again:

• Promoting new directions
• Leading by example, by going first
• Engaging people in jointly developing new directions

1. Promoting New Directions

Martin Luther King, Jr is a great example of promoting new directions. He was not a leader in the sense of getting things done through a team of people. Rather, he promoted greater fairness in the treatment of African Americans. Being a powerful orator helped him to have a leadership impact on millions of people. Everyone can advocate for a better way in their own areas of interest.

Such leadership can be very small scale. In fact, it can be shown bottom-up   something not possible if leadership is seen as a role in a hierarchy.  A good example is the Sony employee who developed PlayStation. His bosses dismissed the idea because they did not see Sony as making games or toys but he managed to convince them to adopt his product. This is bottom-up leadership based on advocacy. 

It is clear that such leadership is a type of influence that is occasionally used, not a role and it does not depend on being a type of person as in the conventional concept of leadership.

    2. Leading by Example

Leading by example is the easiest way to show leadership. You just have to excel in the key tasks of your role and then hope that your team members will follow your example. But all employees can lead by example. New customer service staff who excelled in this role in a previous organisation can lead by example for their new employer by continuing to show excellent customer service. You could argue that leading by example has the limitation that some people may ignore your example but this is true of all forms of influence. The best sales person in the world cannot convert everyone to buyers. Just as a sale occurs only when someone buys, leadership is shown only when people choose to follow.

    3. Engaging Leadership

Leading by engaging others means using engaging questions to draw solutions or new directions out of a target audience. The two most engaging questions are  What do you think?  and  What do you want?  This way of leading has the advantage over the other two that there is a greater chance of shared ownership of new directions. Keep in mind that leadership has as its primary objective: To get others to adopt a new direction. Suppose you want to show leadership to a disgruntled client. You could try to convince them with strong advocacy to promote your plans but you might gain greater commitment if you asked  What do you want?  questions such as:

• What would be your preferred option?
• What would you like to see happen?
• What would you like us to do differently?
• What if we did Y instead of X, how would that be better for you?
• What are you really trying to achieve?
• How would strategy A better help you achieve your objectives?

The last question may help them see that a new strategy might be better for them. By asking them this question rather than selling the benefits of strategy A as you see them, your client is more likely to see it as their strategy. They could adopt a new direction as a result, thanks to this style of leadership.

Part Three: A Closer Look at Managing

To keep it simple, let s focus only on managing people using engaging questions.
Let s assume you know that your team members are interested in advancement. In doing their performance appraisal when they have not met expectations, here are some good engaging questions you might ask of the form  What do you think? 

• What can you do differently to show that you are ready for promotion? Or that you are a star performer?
• How can you build on your strengths to achieve more?
• What can you do to overcome your setbacks?
• How is this setback an opportunity for you?

For delegation, good engaging questions include:

• What would be your plan for getting this done?
• What steps would you take?
• What obstacles do you foresee and how would you overcome them?

For making shared decisions:

• What do you see as the key underlying issues that this problem is raising?
• What do you see as possible solutions?
• What do you think is the best solution?

For team building:

• What do you think we can we do to be a better team, to communicate better and be more collaborative?

Getting the best out of people used to mean delegation primarily. Now, we need to tap into people s brain power more overtly to get the best out of them, to make them feel more valued and more engaged in what needs to be done. Hence the value of  "What do you think?"  questions.

Conclusion: Managing Yourself

To get the best return on your own time, skills, knowledge and experience, think in terms of investment. This is being strategic about yourself. Regularly ask yourself investment/strategic questions such as:

• What is the best use of my time at the moment?
• What can I do here that will generate the best return?
• How can I get more out of my team for this project?
• What executive function should I be applying now: leading, managing or what?

See also: Engaging Leadership, Engaging Questions