> Teach a man to to fish
“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Don’t teach a man to fish… and you feed yourself. He’s a grown man. And fishing’s not that hard.”
Transparent leadership beats servant leadership
21–30 of 258 posts
Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership
#22Can’t wait for AI Slack plugins to replace all low tier middle managers. You can achieve so much transparency since the data is already out there anyway.
There has to be a better way to organize how ICs communicate. More productivity to unlock.
Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership
#23Author gives own take on what they thinks servant leadership means, then invents a supposedly different kind of leadership that is just servant leadership, taken into a different context than the original church one, then gives it a new name, one that doesn't really tie into their definition.
Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership
#24"Servant Leadership" is a term was coined by Robert Greenleaf in his 1977 book "Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness", which is very specifically about being a church leader. Many of the more generic ideas are applicable in any leadership scenario but if you read the book it's very clear that it was not designed with business leadership in mind. You shouldn't really expect i…
All these trendy management things either go back to straight-up bullshit (this is the more common case) or some non-bullshit thing that's been ripped out of its original context such that it becomes bullshit.
Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership
#25Just wanted to provide a useful link on the topic of leadership. The US army publishes its doctrine for free and updates it somewhat regularly:
https://talent.army.mil/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/ARN20039_...
The doctrine is a no-nonsense, no-fluff document based on 200+ years of military tradition where the effectiveness of the leadership is actually life and death. Definitely worth a read if you are interested in leadership.
Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership
#26I've noticed a number of pieces lately that seem to suggest that managers and leaders doing nothing is actually good. It's been this way for a while - "bring me solutions, not problems" is the classic boss's abdication, placing themselves above their teams as judges and deciders rather than leaders - but I wonder if this current glut is caused by AI anxiety. After all, if your job is to just choose between options th…
But see, Claude can do nothing even better than it can choose between options. So why should that boss keep his job again?
"Bring me solutions, not problems" can mean "You are a competent, knowledgeable employee, who has identified a problem. You know enough to look at the alternatives and decide which is best, or at least which ones are workable. Bring me that, not just the problem."
And if it does mean that, it's empowering. You with your hands on the situation, you get to tell the boss what you think the best answer is, and the boss backstops you from deciding something that won't work in the bigger picture.
Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership
#27I must have misunderstood what "Servant Leadership" actually is. I identify as such, but I also do just about all of the "Transparent Leadership" things called out in the article. I may have to re-evaluate my orientation.
There's only one place I disagree and that's when it comes to empowering the team to do every last thing within your charge ("become redundant"). Depending on the organization, there are some actions that only a manager is empowered to do. Someone still needs to be present to weigh in on disputes/arguments, break ties, handle performance, reviews, interviews, PIPs, dismissals, and handle _other_ managers when necessary. It's simply not possible delegate these things and in the case of dealing with other managers, can imperil a person's employment.
Also, I would caution anyone to avoid directly comparing management to parenthood, even as a metaphor. A lot of people have terrible parents, and so model the worst behaviors: they can't nurture a houseplant let alone a human being. I've seen people like this bring the worst possible models for management into the workplace this way, and they do a ton of damage to businesses, psyches, and careers in return. Instead, I urge anyone to look to the carpenter/gardener dichotomy and how good leadership requires a bit of both:
Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership
#28"Servant Leadership" is a term was coined by Robert Greenleaf in his 1977 book "Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness", which is very specifically about being a church leader. Many of the more generic ideas are applicable in any leadership scenario but if you read the book it's very clear that it was not designed with business leadership in mind. You shouldn't really expect i…
Servant leadership works just fine in business (as in a competitive non-church environment) as long you’re aware you you’re serving and who you’re working peer to peer with/against/whatever.
Another term for it somewhat is being a “players coach.”
End state is you will build loyal as heck teams with it, and if you want to take a very cynical business mindset, it produces with the least pain and suffering three very impotent outcomes - your team will produce output, they won’t hate you along the way, and your team will write you (well earned) manager perf reviews. A manager who has a loyal as heck team up and down the stack builds unique odds of corporate survival.
All it takes is a little EQ.
Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership
#29This article is a great example of the Strawman Fallacy. I suppose it's a method to generate traffic but I would argue a key aspect of servant leadership is being transparent that you are in a role that should collectively support and lead to enable and expand the team.
I feel attributing any sort of parental concepts belittles the meaning here.
Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership
#30I've noticed a number of pieces lately that seem to suggest that managers and leaders doing nothing is actually good. It's been this way for a while - "bring me solutions, not problems" is the classic boss's abdication, placing themselves above their teams as judges and deciders rather than leaders - but I wonder if this current glut is caused by AI anxiety. After all, if your job is to just choose between options th…
> “bring me solutions, not problems" If someone says this unprompted, I’d suspect they aren’t a manager, they aren’t even an employee. They provide roughly the same input one provides while ordering food at a restaurant. Basically they are a customer, but also on the payroll. That being said, there are some cases where this might be said out of frustration. I’ve seen in my life a few people whose output is mostly fin…
When I say something like this it usually means “I don’t want to dictate your job to you. You’re here because you’re smart, ambitious, and capable. We’ve talked at length in team settings and 1:1 about our goals. What do you think are the problems that need attention, and what solutions do you propose?”
The anti-pattern I’ve seen from some folks is that they never want to propose solutions because then it’s someone else’s fault if those fail. These folks often demonstrate minimal ownership of any decisions, so they don’t feel bad complaining about all the problems they see. Not only is that unhelpful, it can actually be very toxic for the team. (As you mentioned.)
So when I’m saying “bring solutions” what I’m really asking for is some shared ownership of the choices and consequences—I’m asking folks to act like the main character in the story. And don’t worry, I own the consequences of the mistakes in my team to my leadership—this isn’t about throwing them under the bus. (Getting this to work well requires a lot of trust both ways.)