a-mart
Well Liked Pager Technician
Just goes to show there is no general "what is leadership" / "what a leader should do", he made an example and you made a different one to contradict his
Crete's Corner
- Thread starter bconcrete
- Start date
cmvideo75
Music Idol Champion & Super Idol 3 Champion
Yeah, in my industry there are definitely specialized positions that I wouldn't be able to jump into the chair of but I still need to motivate them to work on my team. Like a 3D animator... if you are a good one, that is pretty much all you do and it gets highly specialized. But I do need to be competent enough to have a peer-to-peer conversation with that guy. That is important. A lot of corporate places will hire someone with a business degree to run a tech team. That usually doesn't end well. You respected that coach's opinion because you knew he knew WTF he was talking about even if he could no longer do it himself. You'd probably feel different if you have the math teacher trying to tell you how to run sprints.
I do believe a good manager should be competent in most all of the areas of their business.
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cmvideo75
Music Idol Champion & Super Idol 3 Champion
Amazon is an interesting example. They seem to hire a lot of ex-military people to leadership positions there. People without any experience in the position they are going into other than their leadership skills. I know several ex-military guys who have gone on to work there in high-level positions. Most of which have told me they have no idea how they got the job vs the competition they were against, who all had business degrees or years of retail experience. So it must be the leadership qualities that Amazon values in those positions.
However, as part of their training they have to go and train EVERY position that Amazon has, including going to a warehouse and packing boxes for 2 weeks. That's pretty wild. So they are kind of forced into being Amazon-competent at all levels.
However, as part of their training they have to go and train EVERY position that Amazon has, including going to a warehouse and packing boxes for 2 weeks. That's pretty wild. So they are kind of forced into being Amazon-competent at all levels.
osubuckeye4
Well-known member
I do love shitting on peoples points.
Absolutely.
One of the worst football coaches I had was this idiot in his mid 20s who would suit up and run drills with us. He was a complete jackass that was just trying to relive failed glory days (never played at a level past high school) and had no idea how to properly instruct outside of jumping in and visually demonstrating.
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a-mart
Well Liked Pager Technician
I'll give two ways to look at leadership in terms discipline - in the army it's very important to be on time and disciplined and the commander has to show why that is, while in hi-tech you often get the most from each employee differently so making them be at the office at 9 AM if they prefer to come later and sometime work at night for example is not a good idea
I know they don't have a great rep for how they treat their workers but that seems a really sensible idea
QuarterCircleForwardPunch
Stiff Member
But that person was able to do it at a time. Its not like he was an accountant and then moved to that role with no experience it the field, no?
bconcrete
VolksFAGGIN
I think you're missing a key point here.
He sounds like the type who WOULD have done that if he felt that is what the team needed. The willingness matters more than the ability in terms of leadership.
To quote Robert Heinlein, "we don't ask kittens to actually fight like lions, we merely ask that they try."
bconcrete
VolksFAGGIN
Having experience with both business school and the military, it's also the fact that military guys have a few unique qualities that you develop that business school just doesn't develop.
1) lateral thinking for mission accomplishment. When you're in, you have to get a job done and you are almost always resource constrained. Tough shit, you still gotta figure it out, so you get creative and find non-obvious solutions.
2) an ability to get by with the bare minimum. Understaffed, undermanned, under-resourced, unclear direction, you are still expected to meet the mark with what you're given.
3) an ability to just suck it up and tolerate suffering.
4) ability to be flexible and reactive and change things on the fly. Lol we had the saying "Semper Gumby" in the Marines because more than half the time what you thought you were doing changed by mid morning and then changed again after lunch. Change was a constant so you learned to just stay flexible, roll with it, and do what needed doing in the moment.
cmvideo75
Music Idol Champion & Super Idol 3 Champion
For sure. One of my friends is a former special ops army medic. He's seen some shit and all 4 of those things you listed are his strong suit. He became a nurse when he left the service and I hired him for a few nursing video shoots. The last time I tried to hire him he said he couldn't do it because he was now working for Amazon in business development (making twice his nursing salary!) and he was going on various 2 week training assignments around the country, so he was booked the week we were shooting.
He has no business experience at all and he was against guys with business degrees that have done similar jobs for other large retailers. Yet he got the gig. And he said exactly what you said... they value people that can figure shit out when shit hits the fan. Clearly his top skill. Some of his army stories are fucking crazy.
Tosh
There Can Be Only One
Absolutely love the way you write, and the content is stellar. All of these apply to the working cowboy (though I was a Buckaroo, except no one knows what that is so I just say cowboy). The cattle ranch in Nevada was remote, and unforgiving. We were over 60 miles from the closest town, population 16. When I broke my pelvis, nobody was gonna go round up my horse, or come get me--vehicles couldn't make it through the brush. Crawling through rocks, brush, and snakes in the rain was, as you said, tough shit. We didn't have any communication, no phone service, even satellite, worked out there in the early 00's. Our only source of electricity was the V8 we tore out of the smashed truck we bought from a tourist, and we used it sparingly. I loved it, but it was hell for most of the cowboys who came and went with a quickness.
osubuckeye4
Well-known member
The initial post literally said that a leader should be both able and willing to do the responsibilities they are delegating to others.
My only point is that not being able to do every task that you're delegating to someone else shouldn't automatically disqualify you from being an effective leader.
Bigger picture, I guess I just feel like if you're unwilling to do something you're capable of doing unless your lead shows you they can do it... that says more about you than it does about them.
Put it this way, if my CFO told me to get him a control deficiency report to him... I would never think to ask him to demonstrate that he was capable of running the report before I provided it to him. I'm assuming if I left he would be able to figure it out, but I don't need him to prove he can do it before I'm willing to do it.
Could you imagine if Patrick Mahomes was like, "Andy, I'm not going to run a bootleg and throw the ball 40 yards downfield unless you get out there and demonstrate how it's done in a full gametime environment with defenders flying at you trying to kill you". Of course Andy Reid can't run a bootleg... he doesn't get paid to do that, he gets paid for the management and analytical shit... Patrick Mahomes gets paid to run bootlegs and throw balls 40+ yards downfield on a rope to receivers. That doesn't mean that Andy Reid is a shitty leader or that he can't teach Patrick Mahomes things about the game of football from an analytical perspective.
nubbynub76
I can't remember my password
Was it something he use to be able to do? Of course age is going to become a factor just ask @Jizz Karma and there's always going to cases where it's not always possible but for the most part if you can't do something you shouldn't ask someone else to.
QuarterCircleForwardPunch
Stiff Member
But your reply merely said it would be insane to ask it if him, not that he wasn't willing and able to. If there's physicality to the task that someone has aged beyond I think willing and able is the same as has done previously and we recognise it's beyond their means now
And who is Andy?
nubbynub76
I can't remember my password
Of course he can't Andy Reid is an offensive tackle not a qb. But could Andy Reid play football at one time and would he still if able?
osubuckeye4
Well-known member
Very few large scale projects of importance would get done if leaders didn't rely on specialists to perform highly specialized tasks...
Now, a terrible leader would recklessly ask someone to do something they were not capable of doing and which they themselves were unwilling to do. I agree 100% with you on that. If they grabbed a truck driver and told them to operate a crane and the driver was like, "Boss, I'm not certified to operate a crane... this is a bad idea, why don't you do it?" and they are like, "I'm not certified either, but I'm telling you to do it so do it". Yea, that's a horrible leader.
Asking someone to do something they are perfectly capable of doing, but which the leader isn't capable of doing though? I don't view that as ineffective leadership at all. If you grab your crane operator and tell them to move a crane they should do it. I don't think you need to get certified to operate the crane in order to effectively run the port.
Of course it's a benefit if the leader is an expert at every aspect of the project and can step in and perform at an equal level as every other person involved, but I don't think it's a necessity... especially as you increasingly scale up the number of people involved and the technical ability required to accomplish the overall task.
Agree to disagree I suppose.
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QuarterCircleForwardPunch
Stiff Member
Query. In this post, is this specialist part of your company or sub contracted?
osubuckeye4
Well-known member
I get where you're going with it, crane operators are typically subcontracted out by unions.
I highly doubt that the President of the IUOE is capable of doing every one of the jobs that the 400,000 members of the union perform though.
Ditto with other large unions, Teamsters union has 1.3 million members and is lead up by Sean M. O'Brien.. O'Brien has a background in rigging and heavy equipment delivery and there are definitely roles within the Teamsters that he could perform, but he's also representing airline pilots and zookeepers.. you don't want Sean O'Brien piloting your commercial airline. It doesn't mean he's an ineffective leader though.
Let's use a business example. In my company the entire org chart ultimately rolls up to the CEO, who reports to the Board of Directors. Our CEO is very competent, but there are many technical roles within our company that our CEO could not step into and perform. Things like regulatory compliance, cybersecurity/IT and legal are not going to be within his wheelhouse and that's why he has hire people to perform those roles.
The more expansive an organization grows, the less a leaders job revolves around knowing how to do everything... and more around knowing how to identify people who know how to do particular things very well, and then ensuring they are performing them to the necessary level.
nubbynub76
I can't remember my password
I've just never really been in a spot where someone with common sense can't do the same job I do which is probably because I've only had jobs that you sometimes have to be strong to do but not necessarily smart. You don't mind doing things in your line of work that your boss can't necessarily do but would you follow a leader into a war zone that can't shoot a gun or carry his equipment?
osubuckeye4
Well-known member
You're thinking narrow and this is why I drew the distinction between leaders and workplace managers.
If I'm front line infantry then yes, I expect the next person up in the chain of the command to be present on the battlefield and capable of handling himself on it.
If I'm that next person then it's likely that the next person up in the chain of command is also present on the battlefield and I would also expect them to be able to handle himself on it.
As you go up the ladder you eventually are going to reach a rank where the next person up in the chain of command is sitting thousands of miles away in an air conditioned room. I wouldn't expect that person to be able to fly in and do everything that I'm being asked to do, and I certainly wouldn't expect them to be able to do everything that everyone who is reporting me can do. The higher up the ladder you get, the higher the likelihood that there will be some highly specialized roles reporting to you that you aren't going to be able to do. Your job isn't to master every one of those roles and earn every possible certification (though if you earn a few it would go a long way to establishing credibility), your primary job is to ensure that the people in those specialized roles are the right people and to know enough to know if they are doing what they are suppose to be doing. There is going to be a level of trust involved though because you can only be in so many places at one time as a leader.