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Transparent leadership beats servant leadership

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Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership

#131

Post by HWR_14 »

CodeMage wrote: post #7

From the post: "The middle manager that doesn't perform any useful work is a fun stereotype, but I also think it's a good target to aim for." This is the kind of argument that makes people come up with middle manager stereotypes in the first place. In fact, the whole post is a great example of why middle manager stereotypes exist: it starts with a straw man argument and comes up with a "better alternative" that makes…

The biggest issue in the post is "creates direct links between supply and demand". One of the more important things to do as a manager is sit in hours of meetings so your reports can get a fifteen minute synopsis about the decisions made. And represent your reports in those meetings.

Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership

#132

Post by JoshCole »

It is pleasantly sensible since servant leadership in a sense creates an innocence because of the incents; the underlying reality is that wisdom dwells with prudence. Principles of revelation arise from incentive compatibility. Aiming at the apparent target is good hearted folly.

Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership

#133

Post by jjk166 »

cj wrote: post #110
jf22 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my worst job experiences was when I depended on a colleague who wouldn't deliver. Any feedback or conversations with that colleague mostly resulted in tantrums and empty promises. The lack of delivery severely harmed the services I provided to the company and to external users, ruined team morale, and was a huge source of stress. My boss always turned the problem back on me, despite him also being my colleague…

You're describing one end of an extreme. The opposite extreme is you have someone on your team who is only able to resolve conflicts by having their boss intervene. E.g. you leave some critical feedback in a PR review. The author of the PR doesn't like your comments, so they tell your mutual boss, then your boss comes to you to ask why you left the comments in the PR, instead of the author coming to you directly. Obv…

> The opposite extreme is you have someone on your team who is only able to resolve conflicts by having their boss intervene.

What's wrong with that? Resolving conflicts is the boss' job. So long as the team mate is doing their actual job appropriately, that's all that matters.

> E.g. you leave some critical feedback in a PR review. The author of the PR doesn't like your comments, so they tell your mutual boss, then your boss comes to you to ask why you left the comments in the PR, instead of the author coming to you directly.

The author should not be coming to you directly, going through the boss is the appropriate route. If the author's complaints were unreasonable, it should be the boss telling them that, not you. If your boss is coming to you, it means they feel the author's complaints are at least partially valid, and you should be hearing that from your boss, not the author.

It's not necessarily a bad thing if people bypass the manager to settle things directly, so long as both parties are comfortable with that, but it's not a happy medium.

Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership

#134

Post by evolve2k »

I want to reproblematise the word ‘leadership’ here. The phrase ‘servant leadership’ is actually a paradigm shift away from classic ‘out-the-front’ ‘the-boss-knows-best’ ‘dominate-others’ leadership.

What the author is missing is parallelisation. By definition in systems of clear one person in charge leadership the work bottlenecks and power centralises, hard.

In models of servant leadership, it’s possible for multiple people to bring leadership and leadership skills all at once.

In a group of a dozen or more people, huge bottlenecks and ego power crap are resolved as multiple people can bring servant leadership.

It’s single core vs parallel, in the later leadership can then come from all participants, even the very young and vulnerable involved in the group can learn to do this.

The emphasis is on skill sharing and being of service OVER power hoarding.

Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership

#135

Post by ToucanLoucan »

harrall wrote: post #107
nlawalker wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was a manager I had to take a training based on the book "The Coaching Habit." It left me really sour on the role, and explained some of the behavior of previous managers of mine that I least appreciated, specifically that their approach to management seemed to be to just get me to articulate and explain my problems over and over until I somehow rubber-ducked myself into solving them myself. When that didn't w…

My biggest complaint about some people is that they measure success by the act of doing and rarely by the result. If I help someone, I am checking if you no longer need help. If I say I’m going to be there at a certain time, I remember every time I’m late. If I do laundry a certain way so I won’t lose a sock, I make sure I haven’t lost a sock. When I do something, my brain replays me “Oh the last time you did this, y…

You've put into excellent words what I have done my whole life. Intent matters but it isn't sufficient. If you "meant to be on time" but weren't, you failed. Simple as. You don't need to lash yourself about it but too many folk are ready to give themselves a pat on the back for good intentions, or trying but failing, etc.

If you say you're gonna be somewhere, show the fuck up. Anything short is a miss. Failing to account for that makes you an asshole, IMO.

Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership

#136

Post by jvanderbot »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #109
nlawalker wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was a manager I had to take a training based on the book "The Coaching Habit." It left me really sour on the role, and explained some of the behavior of previous managers of mine that I least appreciated, specifically that their approach to management seemed to be to just get me to articulate and explain my problems over and over until I somehow rubber-ducked myself into solving them myself. When that didn't w…

Three buckets of "management": 1. Mentoring: "this is what I did in a similar situation..." - overused and often not as similar or detailed as needed. 2. Coaching: "what do you think?" valuable for longer term development that depends on deeper thought and introspection; Your immediate problems a generally neither of these. 3. Sponsoring: "You mentioned you're looking for X and I heard about a new project where you c…

"Can't" is not why people become managers.

At least be thoughtful and say "Won't" (because they prefer management)

Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership

#137

Post by AndrewKemendo »

alwa wrote: post #96
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no good organizations, only ones that aren’t completely corrupt yet. Consider that to start and maintain an organization takes significant capital and energy expenditures upfront, which means you need to fund them from somewhere and ask sources of funding are corrupted. Consider: there are no long lasting egalitarian, distributed power, grassroots organizations that can compete at a level of social influenc…

I’d be curious what you identified as the shortcomings of e.g. MSF or Mondragon. I might throw semi-decentralized social ventures like the IFRC in the mix there too: that emblem alone sure carries an almost-talismanic degree of social weight, seemingly worldwide, I think in large part because they’re foresworn from swinging around their influence outside of their lane. And I mean… “don’t want to live like a monk” see…

I’m simply acknowledging that only a tiny fraction of any group will find themselves devoted to the group in the “monastic” way of self erasure

Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership

#138

Post by gretch »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #135
harrall wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My biggest complaint about some people is that they measure success by the act of doing and rarely by the result. If I help someone, I am checking if you no longer need help. If I say I’m going to be there at a certain time, I remember every time I’m late. If I do laundry a certain way so I won’t lose a sock, I make sure I haven’t lost a sock. When I do something, my brain replays me “Oh the last time you did this, y…

You've put into excellent words what I have done my whole life. Intent matters but it isn't sufficient. If you "meant to be on time" but weren't, you failed. Simple as. You don't need to lash yourself about it but too many folk are ready to give themselves a pat on the back for good intentions, or trying but failing, etc. If you say you're gonna be somewhere, show the fuck up. Anything short is a miss. Failing to acc…

If you’re interested in the subject and want to read more, the concept is commonly called “outcome oriented” vs “process oriented”.

A LOT of workplace conflict arises out of outcome oriented ppl having to work with process oriented people.

Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership

#139

Post by dasil003 »

brabel wrote: post #41
dasil003 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That entire paragraph is a string of poorly-articultated, cringeworthy sentences. In fact the whole article seems to be a series of strawmen set up on the basis of oddly specific and naive interpretations of management concepts like "servant leadership". There's basically nothing in here that I would agree with as a blanket statement without a lot of company and org-specific provisos. All that said, to be charitable,…

> All that said, to be charitable, I think what the author meant to express is that you don't want to make yourself a bottleneck as a manager, That's not being charitable, that's just having basic interpretation skills of the very next sentence of the article.

Huh? The next sentence is: "The difference lies in what to do once one has rendered oneself redundant."

Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership

#140

Post by geoffbp »

jjk166 wrote: post #130

Comparing leadership to parenting right out the gate tells me all I need to know about this person's management ability. Your direct reports are not children. You are not raising them out of an altruistic drive to guide the next generation. You are a part of a team of grown adults. You are not above the team, you have a roll on the team. It is an important roll: as a leader you provide high level direction so people…

Role*

Sorry

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