My Leadership Journey in the Age of the Knowledge Worker
A lot of ink has been spilled over the years on the concepts of being a leader. Just as much on Peter Drucker’s concept of the knowledge worker. I’d like to spill a bit more on my own perspective on my journey down the leadership path in the age of the knowledge worker.
To begin with, I firmly believe there are no bad teams, only bad leaders. This is a concept I learned in the military that has translated perfectly into civilian life. A bad leader must always push his teams, a good leader may start off pushing, but with intent and the *ability* to have the teams pulling the leader before long. This matters!
Both kinds of leaders may generate the short-term end result that was needed, but the bad leader will put themselves in the position where their results aren’t sustainable. This is generally manifested as some combination of sub-par work, over the allocated budget, behind set schedules, team burn-out, and high staff turn-over. That creates an additional set of hidden costs that you don’t suffer from good leadership.
How you get to results is just as important as the results. This speaks to stability, sustainability, and reliability – all critical metrics of long term success for the business. So – how do we define a good leader? Read on!
What is a “leader”?
Answering that question requires that we recognize that leadership itself has tactical and strategic elements. I call the tactical element "management". Management by itself is not leadership and vice versa. They are complementary but still separate.
Managing is about tracking value by focusing on the short-term elements of processes and structures. Management is the tactical - keeping track of the details, coordination, and planning.
You must perform the managerial parts of the job fairly, consistently, conservatively, and honestly. If this sounds like I repurposed the adjectives in the last sentence from Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) - well, I did: there is clearly an intersection of common needs and thus shareable standards. By taking this approach, you clear the field of uncertainty on the how and the when.
Leadership is creating value by focusing on the long-range perspective of people and results. You must be of high integrity at all times, with an eye towards challenging, inspiring, motivating and innovating - the strategic. Leadership requires you to keep your eyes on the horizon, and keeping your focus there is the primary leadership challenge that you will run into.
As an illustration, and as I am borrowing and repurposing a great deal from Peter Drucker, I will now directly quote him: "Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things."
What is a “knowledge worker” and how do I lead them?
There is a wrinkle on leadership that hasn’t been fully embraced by many of my peers: recognizing that the knowledge worker now rules in the white collar business world. Knowledge works are paid to think for a living – ingest data, react to data, and then produce results from that data. Knowledge workers are not generalist commodities, but highly trained and valuable specialists.
Leading them can be a difficult task – they want to be led by example, not over-managed, and often know more than their supervisors do about their specialty, prefer some level of autonomy, and are often desperate to be heard.
To successfully engage the knowledge worker you must understand their individual strengths, be able to build them into teams with strong purposes with clearly defined and achievable objectives. Nothing will throw off a team of knowledge workers faster than ill-defined, over-simplified, or over-generalized objectives. Good leaders will recognize that the successful result at the end of an endeavor is often found by having framed the need properly at the start.
Going into depth on leading knowledge workers is beyond the scope here, but at a high level:
- They are your experts. Don’t guess, ask.
- Ensure that the right information/data flows to them. Enable them to self “prospect” where appropriate.
- Leverage them as a trusted partner. They want to be a part of the solution, not a drone assigned tasks.
- Grant the autonomy to do their work, validate that approach with strong monitoring and metrics.
- Find the leaders in the group and cultivate them. Building and mentoring leaders allows for easier delegation of authority when needed.
- LEARN from them – not just you as a leader, but encourage the business at all levels to become a learning organization capable of digesting new knowledge. Their viewpoint is unique and valuable. Great insights can be found by mining that viewpoint.
Ultimately to be successful as a leader in the age of the knowledge worker, you must combine the disciplines of management which answers the “how” and the “when” with leadership which answers the “what” and the “why”. Doing so will extend your authority from being one of only title to one of ability and execution.
Where is leadership applied?
Leadership isn’t just expressed in your direct spheres of influence (directs, peers, your leaders, customers) and at specific moments. Instead, you should strive to apply it everywhere and at all times - every interaction, every decision, and every audience. Leadership is something you wear on your sleeve, and it is part of you. You must follow the principle of “esse quam videri”: To be, rather than to seem to be.
In film, there is an effect called the “uncanny valley.” This is the ability of the human eye to easily perceive computer-generated imagery from reality. You want to avoid the leadership version of the “uncanny valley” - it can’t be a persona that you put on for your job. People can and will spot actors playing the part of “Leader”.
How do I get there?
Leadership is a journey, not a destination. Trite, but also true. If great leadership requires your full attention on every interaction, then every interaction carries with the opportunity for success or failure. You need to be able to step back and perform this introspective on yourself on a regular basis. Validate that with those around you – your directs, your peers, and your leaders. Yes – even your directs.
Perhaps most important is feedback from your directs. I’ve had some pushback from other managers and leaders over the years who believe it is a sign of a weakness or pandering to solicit input from your staff. This is a place that I respectfully disagree. You can solicit honest input through dialogue (I’m a huge proponent of the quick 1:1) that allows you to constantly evaluate yourself without running into those issues.
The concept of the introspective as a self-assessment validated by the input of others is a key takeaway. Without it, you are potentially disconnected from the reality of how you are operating as a leader. You must always be evaluating, learning, evolving as a leader. This is also a concept that once mastered, can be leveraged in your evaluations of others.
