In a world where we've walked away from master/slave, blacklists.. why is servant still being used?
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Transparent leadership beats servant leadership
91–100 of 258 posts
Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership
#92From 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…
Friendly reminder that management exists to get you to justify your expensive pay check. Every employer-employee relationship is adversarial. Adjust accordingly.
Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership
#93From 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…
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…
The "required" reading for newly minted managers in my $billion company was/is this shit called "One Minute Manager": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_One_Minute_Manager, including "one minute reprimands" as if employees are children. Happily, I am no longer a manager.
Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you ever want to quickly destroy an organization, just separate the ability to control with the responsibility to control. Burnout, infighting, and chaos will ensue.
Control, responsibility and accountability have to align. * You should only be accountable for what you are responsible for. * You should only be responsible for what you have control of. Bad managers hate this structure because in makes them accountable for themselves and their subordinates and prevents deflection of blame to low level employees.
Please compare and contrast "accountability" and "responsibility".
Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
Being responsible for something while having little/no control is so demoralizing & infuriating.
Ah yes, the need for "influence without authority", i.e. "the real challenge of this project is that you have been organizationally set up to fail, and we expect you to find a way to succeed in spite of that."
This is what removed any lingering thoughts I had about moving up the corporate ladder. If in order to succeed I either need to do certain things or at least get other groups to do those things, and if I'm not allowed to do those things, and if no other group is willing to do those things, and if no one above me is going to change the circumstances, why on earth would anyone think this could be successful?
Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
It sounds like you have been burnt, badly. There is surely a business out there that does fit your world view, though the pay and conditions might not. In my view, the need for growth at any cost is toxic and leads to all sorts of horrible behaviours.
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” seems like a telling qualifier: the whole monastic lifestyle seems pretty widespread and enduring across cultures and through time… is the humbler mode of religious devotion an example of what you’re looking for?
In any case you’ve clearly thought deeply and widely about this question—I’d be interested to read your thoughts if you end up collecting them somewhere!
Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership
#97In a world where we've walked away from master/slave, blacklists.. why is servant still being used?
What historical systematic injustice do you associate this word with?
Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership
#98My first few years as an engineering manager were heavily influenced by my idea that I needed to be a "shit umbrella" - I needed to protect my team from all of the shit raining down around the organization so they could focus on getting stuff done. I eventually realized that this is a terrible management philosophy! Your team would much rather understand what's going on, why things are happening and why certain proje…
Distinguish between "seeing the shit" and "being hit by it all".
Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership
#99Managing upwards beats being managed in my experience. Seems to work with most managers, and reduces surprises which reduces stress all around and causes course corrections and course alignments earlier.
I tend to do status updates in public channels before anyone can ask me but I've been the fortunate loner for the last couple years where I get to work with a lot of people but outside a lot of process.
Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership
#100Just 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 le…
Because of the Ukraine conflict, the phrase "mission command" came to my attention. It's about C2 rather than leadership but another one of those gems we might filter out in our "Bay Area" (you're all terminally online Europeans / teenagers jk) bubble. The idea of mission command is pretty simple. If you see an incidental opportunity that will contribute to the big picture and pursuing it won't compromise the objecti…
> ninety-nine times out of ten
that gave me a chuckle