Leaders vs Managers: Adaptive Leaders Pursue Change; Old Style Managers Cling To The Past

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates recently criticizedrules, creating a bureaucracy that stifles innovation and
the US military for not doing enough to support soldierscreativity making it short-sighted, inflexible and
in Iraq and Afghanistan, singling out the Air Force forunadaptive. Enlightened, adaptive leaders are much
adapting too slowly to the new enemies on thosedifferent from top-down managers. They tend to be
battlefields. He blamed military leaders who are "stuckmore non-linear in their thinking. These leaders are
in old ways of doing business". That may soundmore intuitive, have greater insight, and are more
strange to hear coming from a senior governmentcreative. Being more conceptual, the see the "big
official who knows full well that the military is steepedpicture", are futuristic oriented, possess holistic insight
in the tradition of command and control leadership thatand emotional intelligence. They have greater
creates a top-down management style and fostersspontaneity and flexibility-a balanced integration of
orderliness and predictability, rather than innovation andrational analytical and unconventional imaginative
adaptability. But in a world of chaos and ever changingprocesses. They have the ability to take a new
conditions, Mr. Gates realizes that the ability to changeperspective to an old complex problem and
and adapt is key to military success: What workedreassemble interrelated parts of the problem in novel
well in the past may now be an outmoded andand unusual ways leading to a viable solution. They are
ineffective approach. Mr. Gates is pointing out a truismmuch better at coping with the non linear complex
that US business organizations of all types and sizesnature of the competitive context of our global
have witnessed and/or experienced during the past 75business environment. One would think that most of
plus years: Unadaptive organizations underperform andthese adaptive leaders head up the newer hi-tech
or fail in the long run. Companies like Sears & Roebuck,companies like Apple, Google, Nintendo, Microsoft and
K-Mart, Pam Am, Howard Johnsons, Armour &But if you look at the recent list of the top 25
Company, Westinghouse Electric are examples ofinnovative companies recently compiled by
businesses which were once at the top of theirBusinessWeek (4/28/2008), you may be surprised to
industrial sectors only to be toppled by competitorsfind more traditional companies such as General
who looked into the future, adapted and out performedElectric, Toyota Motor, Hewlett Packard, Wal-Mart, and
them. And the way their competitors did it was withProctor & Gamble included on the list with the newer
adaptive leaders, not top-down managers. So what'shi-tech companies. These more traditional companies
the difference between the two? Consider top-downhave adaptive leaders who are building cultures that
managers first. These managers, for the most part,value creative people in good times and bad. The good
are predominantly linear thinkers. Linear thinkers arenews is that managers can change and become more
rational, logical and analytical. They are mainlyadaptive leaders just as traditional companies can
concerned with the present, not the future. They tendbecome more innovative. As a corporate executive
to stick with things that have worked well in the pastleadership coach, I have worked with hundreds of
as opposed to experimenting with the unfamiliar. Theymanagers and executives for the past 20 years and I
are very organized individuals who value orderlinesshave witnessed a transformation of many individuals
and predictability. They favor rules and procedures towho have changed from top-down managers to
ensure that orders from the top are followed throughadaptive leaders. All thinking and behavior can be
to the lowest level. Their mentality is that managerschanged...it is called learning. Through assessment, self
think, workers do (as they are told)....an idea generatedawareness, action learning, and coaching, managers
by the father of management science, Frederick W.can become more effective and adaptive leaders. In
Taylor during the early 20th century. This approachessence, my experience, research and observations
worked fine back then, during the early US industrialhave led me to conclude that the assertion, "Leaders
economy. But today, things are quite different. We areare born, not made," is a myth.
now living and working in a knowledge economy. If youStan Truskie,Ph.D. is President of MSD Leadership
have ever worked for one of these authoritativeConsultants Inc. a Pittsburgh based firm specializing in
managers, you know first hand how autocratic andexecutive coaching, change management, and
controlling they can be. Gather a group of these linearleadership development with Fortune 500
thinkers and place them at the top, running thecompanies.He is author of Leadership in High
organization, and guess what you get? A very rigidPerformance Organizational Cultures and has
top-down organization that does everything by theappeared on TV/Radio.