Transforming: How Managers Become Leaders

The leadership model is fundamentally different. It does not replace the management model but superimposes an ethos over it. This model has its people at the center, and though it calls for the manager to fulfill the same discrete tasks as the management model, it imposes another higher calling. The leader is a manager, to be sure. But he must also be a developer and enabler of his people. This function of developing and enabling is difficult. It calls for the manager to step outside the comfortable confines of a thoroughly described management model and assume greater responsibility. But it has great potential. Through leadership, the manager taps emotional reserves not addressed in the supervisory functions of the management model. Leaders concentrate on what are often contemptuously called "soft skills." These are motivating, developing, and communicating with people. In this territory of leadership, there are few textbook solutions. The leader is called upon to improvise, and flexibility and spontaneity become important. A key element of leadership is the ability and desire to both listen and empathize. This alone often begins the process of unlocking the personal reservoir of emotion, character traits, and skills that can lead to greater performance. Leadership is not important for that reason alone. It is important because most of us spend the greater portion of our lives at the workplace, not with our families or friends. Our emotional health is often driven by our workplace. Psychiatrists have long recognized a condition called "folie a deux". This translates as "shared madness".2 Spend too much time with someone with character defects and you acquire them. An oppressive leader can create a climate that is unhealthy. But a leader who is too receptive, too empathetic, may also acquire the unwholesome traits of his followers