"I'm a leader, not a manager!"

One of Kent's friends — we'll call him Roy — is a master craftsman who owns a small business that makes custom wood furniture. After making some cutbacks in 2009, his little company still employs three fine woodworkers, an office supervisor/customer service rep, and an apprentice.

What makes Roy unusual is that when he founded his firm a dozen years ago, he realized he knew nothing about business. And so he began reading serious books on the subject, as well as the Harvard Business Review and two or three business magazines.

What he's learned in the past few years is that, as he says, "I'm a leader, not a manager. I'm really good at innovation and pointing out new directions. You know, the vision thing. But I hate everything I have to do to keep the doors open and the lights on. When business was good, I could get other people to do all that while I was out designing new pieces or installations for customers, but now I have to do more of it."

Management vs. leadership — it's a distinction we all hear over and over these days. It says management focuses on getting work done on time, on budget, and on target — in other words, steady execution and control — while leadership focuses on change and innovation.
Some years ago, management was the more inclusive term and included leadership — along with motivating, planning, communicating, organizing and the like — as one of many functions necessary to make groups of people productive. Then in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the perception took hold that the U.S. was in danger of falling behind innovative competitors (Japan, in particular) because traditional management as practiced by U.S. businesses didn't promote change and innovation. The solution was leadership, which was singled out as the ability to do exactly that. Thus was born the new age of leadership in which we've heard even senior managers say, like Roy, "I'm a leader, not a manager!"

Most writers about leadership then and now explicitly note the continuing importance of management. Success still depends on execution, controls and boundaries, systems, processes, and continuity. Without all that, leadership only produces dreams. Nonetheless, being a leader has taken on a shiny, romantic aura these days while management has been given an undertone of grubby practicality. Leaders are superior beings who inspire the rest of us to greatness while managers are dull business functionaries obsessed with budgets, schedules, policies, and procedures. This thinking is at least partially behind the attitude of Kent's friend. Roy considers himself an artisan, a creator of beauty in wood, and seeing himself as a leader fits easily with that self-perception. But making sure the bills go out on time, keeping the machines working, and dealing with the employee who cuts corners and doesn't meet customer specifications aren't nearly so romantic.

Both leadership and management are crucial, and it doesn't help those responsible for the work of others to romanticize one and devalue the other. To survive and succeed, all groups and businesses must simultaneously change in some ways and remain the same in others. They must execute and innovate, stay the course and foster change. Yes, the guidance, group skills, and mindsets required for serious change and innovation differ from those needed for continuity and steady execution. But that only means those in charge must be able to act as both change agent and steward of continuity, manager and leader, as the situation requires. The challenge is to discern when one versus the other is needed. To idealize leadership and demean management only makes that challenge even harder.

To avoid all the positive and negative connotations around "leadership" and "management" today, we often use the term "boss." It's not a perfect title — no one likes to be "bossed around." To paraphrase Mary Parker Follett, a management writer in the early 1900s, the mark of a good boss is how little actual bossing he or she must do. Still, "boss" or its equivalent in other languages is widely used across generations and cultures to refer neutrally to the person in charge, the one responsible for the work of others, the one to whom each of us must answer at work.

If you're a boss, think of yourself as the one responsible for the work of others, the one who must manage and lead as necessary, without favoring one over the other. Focus on whatever is required of you to make your people productive. Most of all, take care not to conceive of yourself as the glorious leader always blazing new trails while leaving the gritty, mundane details of making it all work to lesser beings. Kent's friend may say, "I'm not a manager," but the survival of his business probably owes as much to his management skills as it does his leadership talents. 

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by Linda Hill & Kent Lineback ; taken from harsaconsulting@gmail.com
*illustration is powered by google

Syefa in Action...

Syefa, pada saat usia 3 tahun, @salah satu kidzone di Bandung

Pose-nya OKE punya:)

2011, Lebaran Day @TransStudio Bandung

Haura Faina*

Alhamdulillah, buah hati kedua kami yang sudah 9 bulan ditunggu-tunggu akhirnya terlahir. Dengan proses persalinan normal dan sedikit ditambah tindakan vacuum, suara tangisan lucu dan menggemaskan itu ikut menyambut datangnya pagi di kota Bandung. Tepat pukul 05.10 WIB, hari Kamis tanggal 23 Februari, bayi perempuan kami ini terlahir. Hawa dingin di kota Bandung saat itu jadi terasa hangat membahagiakan bagi kami sekeluarga.

Proses perjuangan sang umi luar biasa hebat. Dimulai dengan tanda-tanda persalinan akan segera tiba, si umi (sebutan untuk isteri saya) merasakan tarikan hebat di bawah perut disertai dengan rasa panas di pinggang belakang bagian bawah. Tanda-tanda ini memang lazim bagi ibu-ibu yang akan melahirkan. Subhanallah. Mengikuti proses persalinan ini, membuat kita semakin hormat kepada ibu kita. luar biasa pengorbanan dan perjuangannya. Semoga Allah SWT selalu melimpahkan curahan nikmat dan kasih sayang kepada ibu kita, baik yang masih ada maupun yang sudah mendahului kita menemu sang Khaliq. Demikian juga kepada bapak kita, semoga selalu dalam lindungan Allah SWT dan dalam kebaikan selalu.

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Rabu malam tanggal 22 Februari 2012, sekira pukul 19.00 si umi diantar oleh teh Neng  (kakak si umi, karena tempat tinggal kami memang ada di komplek dan blok yang sama) ke bidan karena sudah mulai merasakan tanda-tanda persalinan. Untungnya tempat bidan ini dekat rumah di komplek tempat kami tinggal. Waktu itu saya masih berada di sekitar kantor, baru saja mau pulang ke rumah. Ternyata di 'pemeriksaan dalam' oleh bidan tersebut, sudah ‘pembukaan dua’ (istilah dalam penyebutan saat melahirkan, ditandai dengan pembukaan 1 sampai pembukaan 10/lengkap di mulut rahim). Tanpa menunggu waktu lagi, si umi dan teh Neng  segera menuju rumah sakit bersalin ‘Harapan Keluarga’ yang disana memang ada dokter Ali Suratman, Sp.OG, dokter langganan kami untuk konsultasi dan check-up selama masa kehamilan. Pada proses persalinan ini, saya dan isteri memang sudah sepakat untuk 'lahiran' di tempat dokter Ali yang berada di sekitar Pasir Luyu kota Bandung tersebut.

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Alhamdulillahnya, sesaat sebelum si umi berangkat menuju Harapan Keluarga, saya sudah berada di depan rumah kami, baru pulang ngantor. Sebuah taxi blue-bird, yang waktu itu dibawa oleh driver bernama pak Untung sudah siap mengantar si umi dan beberapa anggota keluarga ke RS bersalin yang disebutkan tadi. Saya sebagai suami tentu saja ikut dengan ‘rombongan’ kecil ini.

Setengah jam kemudian, kami tiba di RS Harapan Keluarga. Teh Neng  membantu saya mengurus hal-hal administratif, sementara saya mendampingi si umi menuju kamar pemeriksaan. Tepat pukul 21.30, sudah masuk pada tahap pembukaan 3-4. Hal ini bertahan sampai sejam kemudian.

Tahap pembukaan 7-8 terjadi pada pukul 01.30 dini hari Kamis 23 Februari 2012. Kemudian sampai pada pembukaan lengkap pukul 03.30, 2 jam kemudian. Namun karena posisi kepala janin kami masih agak tinggi di atas rahim, maka si umi disuruh dulu ‘rebahan’ menyamping sambil menunggu ‘mules’.

Kemudian, pada pukul 04.00 pagi itu juga si umi diminta kembali melakukan proses ‘mengedan’nya. Namun karena sudah begadang semalaman, dan energi sudah sangat terkuras, si umi tidak kuat terus mengedan, sampai akhirnya dokter Ali meminta izin kepada saya untuk melakukan tindakan bantuan, berupa proses vacuum. Dengan sedikit pemahaman tentang segala kemungkinan dan resikonya saya mengizinkan, yan penting, si umi dan bayi kami sehat dan selamat. Alhamdulillah puteri cantik kami akhirnya terlahir dengan sehat dan selamat. Demikian juga si umi yang sehat dan baik juga. Semoga selalu demikian. Amiin ya Allah.

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Ya Allah ya Tuhan kami, mohon beri kami kekuatan untuk bisa menjaga, merawat dan mendidik putera-puteri kami agar bisa menjadi anak-anak yang soleh dan solehah, menjadi qurrata a’yun waj’alna lil muttaqiina imama.. Amiin Ya Rab ‘alaamiin.

*puteri kami ini kami beri nama dengan nama 'Haura Faina', gabungan dua kata dari bahasa yang berbeda. Haura dari bahasa Arab berarti 'wanita berkulit putih bermata hitam', dan Faina berasal dari bahasa Celtic yang berarti 'yang selalu membawa kegembiraan'.