Challenge of Leadership

Interviews with Successful Managers

I interviewed two very successful managers within my own organization and

shadowed one. Each individual expressed appreciation when I explained the

assignment and both were very willing to give me the time I needed to discuss

the issues with them. LK is the Senior Management Analyst II with responsibility

for operations in xxxxxxxx. HP is the Director of Planning and Evaluation and

has responsibility for social services program offices, budget, planning and

quality improvement activities. They both work for the xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, a

social services agency that provides xxxxxxxxx benefits and services to

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. These duties include

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx and managing contracts for xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

facilities.

One manager (LK) has twenty years’ experience and has steadily risen from

within the organization. About four or five years ago, she went back to school

and received her MBA from the University of South Florida. She is currently the

operations manager for xxxxxxxx and has responsibility for more than 100

employees. The other manager I chose (HP) has been with our agency for four

years, starting as a programmer in Information Systems and moving rapidly into

a senior management position. Although his background is in computer sales,

he has been extremely successful in this organization.

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Both individuals are positive, supportive of staff and able to get things done.

They are honest and give positive feedback to others. They are different in their

styles, but each is very effective. Interesting to note, both are very familiar with

Stephen Covey and have his books and tapes.

LK is a long-time agency employee who has been successful at all levels of the

organization. She has demonstrated an ability to work within unfamiliar

programs and be able to win staff’s respect. She sees herself as a person rooted

in values. She is involved in her church and with her family. Happily married,

she has one ten-year-old daughter. She sees herself as a person who cares

about people and works hard to satisfy her customers, both internal and external

to the organization.

She believes in balancing her life and is involved in activities that are outside her

employment. She is a Girl Scout leader. She plays the guitar and, along with

her husband and daughter, goes on long-distance bike trips.

Before coming to the xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, LK graduated from the

University of Cincinnati with a BA in communication arts. Her first job was as a

disc jockey at a local radio station. After a year, she was bored and came to her

present employer. After becoming a manager, she taught herself management

skills by reading and listening to tapes. She then entered the MBA program at
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the University of South Florida and graduated with a concentration in

management in 1993.

She believes that learning is life-long and continues to read and take advantage

of opportunities as they arise. She is a certified public manager and currently is

in charge of our agency’s Mentoring for Success program. All these experiences

help her strengthen her skills.

The critical problems she faces as a manager involve the equitable distribution of

very scarce resources. She works consistently to keep her staff motivated. She

uses love, coaching, mentoring and supportive behavior to maintain this

motivation. Given the current atmosphere of the organization, when we are

actively trying to divest our operational staff and privatize our services, this is no

small accomplishment. I have observed LK in many situations and she is

consistent in supporting her staff and making sure that others leave with a

positive impression of their abilities. If there are issues, she handles them in

private.

She sees her greatest strengths as optimism and enthusiasm. She has three

non-negotiable expectations of herself: good customer service, delivery of good

quantity and quality of services, and that all contacts with others are professional

and courteous. She expects these behaviors from her staff as well.
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Our organization was one of the state leaders in xxxxxxxxx. Our organization

was one of the few sites chosen to pilot the xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Program, which

was the precursor of the current xxxxxxx system. LK believes her most

successful time as manager was when the organization was campaigning to be

part of the pilot program. Several sites had been written into the pilot program

and we were not one of them. Because we believed this would be a good thing

for xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, LK led the effort for this district to be considered. She

pushed to be on the agenda when the xxxxxxxx Manager came down for a visit.

Her presentation was inspired. According to LK, everything came together that

day. As a result of her efforts and leadership, the program was set up here as

the state chose one more site than they had intended.

The most needed critical skills are leadership-related. A good leader must

motivate people to do their best, believe in the mission, and rise to the same

level of commitment as the leader. Skills include the ability to analyze the

situation around one, to pick up on non-verbal cues and to mediate differences

as they arise. Skills involve having the ability to boost others’ self-confidence.

The leader must have respect for others to have the respect from others.

LK has had her share of difficult employees over the years. In the state system it

is very difficult to terminate ineffective employees without tremendous efforts to

document problems and issues. The employee has rights to hearings and other

recourse when problems arise. Therefore this is a touchy issue for most of the
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supervisors in our system. LK’s approach is to be honest with the employee,

discussing the issues openly. If a heart-to-heart talk does not make the situation

better, then she would do what was necessary to correct the problem. If that did

not work, disciplinary action follows. LK’s point was that letting people go can be

a good thing. This gives the person an opportunity to find a job that’s a better fit

with his or her abilities and interests.

People in similar positions have failed because they were too nice. A manager

cannot let people run over you. Also a manager must be on top of things; people

have failed by delegating too much. You cannot take “nice” too far.

In discussing managers she has known, LK was able to quickly name

characteristics of three. One person has a great ability to analyze data and use

that analysis in increasing others’ performance. Another manager was cited for

his positive, can-do attitude. A third person has a good image of

professionalism. In determining most admired traits, LK thought that people skills

were most important, since a manager could find someone to supply the

technical and analytical expertise.

Her three highest priorities at work are as follows:

 Spending time with staff

 Managing correspondence to know what’s going on

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 Developing subordinates’ skills

LK sees her managerial style as participatory. I would agree after observing her

in several situations.

When asked about her five-year plan, LK laughed and opined that privatization

and its uncertainties make that difficult. Instead of a five-year plan, she has short-

and long-term goals. Her everyday mission is to do the best she can. She works

daily on developing her managers. In ten years she’d like to have her Ph.D. and

be teaching in a university and will go back to school again as her daughter gets

older.

When we discussed her legacy, LK was articulate in hoping that everyone who

has come into contact with her has benefited from her presence in their lives.

In training a replacement for herself, she would make sure the individual

understood the difference of people’s styles in getting things done. The person

would need analytical skills, problem-solving skills, assessment skills and the

ability to get along with all kinds of people.

Rating chart:

Managing personal stress 4

Orchestrating change 5
Managing Time 5
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Delegating 3
Facilitating Group Decision Making 4
Goal Setting 4
Decision-Making 3
Listening 5
Identifying problems 5
Disciplining Others 1
Verbal communications 5
Interviewing 3
Performance evaluation 4
Empathizing 5
Motivating others 5
Team building 5
Managing conflict 5
Problem solving 5
Achieving self-awareness 3
Conducting meetings 3
Gaining and using power 3
Negotiating 3

The ratings LK gave these areas matched her responses to the questions and

tracked her descriptions of her strengths and the areas she believes are critical.

Most of her efforts are spent on orchestrating change, team building, problem

solving and other activities you would expect from a manager who has a large

span of control in a constantly changing environment. By concentrating on the

people skills in the list above, she does not need to spend much time disciplining

others. She is constantly managing her time, but might have more if she used

delegation more often.

Shadowing Experience

Since I work with LK, I have an opportunity to interact with her in various settings.

For this exercise, she invited me to attend a xxxxxxxxx Association meeting

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where she would be explaining our Invitation to Negotiate (ITN) with private

agencies to take over xxxxxx recruitment, licensing and retention. This is an

emotionally charged issue for her and for the particpants since we do not know

how the new system will look, who will operate it or when the transition will occur.

Since the issue will affect these people and because rumor control is a necessity,

this forum was chosen. The meeting was in the evening. About 17 particpants

were in attendance. This group is fairly friendly, but LK had some concern how

they would accept the change. In giving her talk she stood in front of the room

and walked between the tables as she talked. She began the discussion by

trying to motivate this group to get involved in xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. She

pointed out examples where they could have been involved but chose not to.

For example the xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

Thirty of the participants volunteered but none came to the training.

Although she was exhorting them to do better, LK was consistently friendly and

warm, making eye contact with various people in the group. She used reflective

listening, reframing the questions people asked and humor to get her points

across. Since this is a personally painful topic for her - “Folks, we are going out

of business,” her demeanor was very important to her. LK did not pull any
 Challenge of Leadership

punches, but gave people the information they needed in such a way that they

felt their opinion was valued.

When the questions began, she used her audience to answer issues where she

wanted help or reinforcement. She ended the discussion with good news and

praised these participants for their dedication.

LK is very comfortable around people and is confident in her abilities. She was

able to reassure nervous people and provide unbiased information even though

she is not personally in favor of the changes.

Interview #2

My second interview was with a short-time employee whose tenure with the

department is his first venture from the private, for profit sector. HP is first and

foremost a salesman who speaks in terms of selling. He is energetic, positive

and exudes an air of confidence.

He sees himself as others do: positive, energetic, and supportive. HP likes to

make people feel good about themselves. He says he is honest and forthright.

He’s married and has two young sons. He consistently described his wife as “my

lovely wife” and credited her with making him a better person.
 Challenge of Leadership

HP has a varied education. He liked college but took courses as they interested

him. By the time he’d been in college several years, he had credits for a

possibility of four majors. He chose computer science and has a BS degree. He

actually had to take one final course at Edison Community College to complete

the requirements for that degree. HP has a wide variety of interests in

psychology and self-help courses. He attends seminars and believes in constant

improvement. He buys motivational tapes and listens to them on the radio as he

drives. He also works on his spiritual education, believing that religions are alike

in their ideology and politics, but differ in their faith systems.

Critical problems facing him include dishonesty and hidden agendas. He is most

frustrated by lack of motivation or lack of passion in others. He is in a position to

deal with local staff and is in constant communication with headquarters staff in

xxxxxxxxxx.

He sees his greatest strengths as a good communicator. He can understand

well what others are trying to express. He will keep asking until he gets a good

grasp on the subject. He is focus and is very strong in planning. HP considers

himself still an outsider, and can use this advantage to see a bigger picture. A

need is to maximize resources. He is a strong advocate of continual quality

improvement: assess – provide service – review outcome. As outcomes are

reviewed, then improvements can be made.

 Challenge of Leadership

HP’s greatest success came in his former life when he owned a computer

company. In that environment he cross-trained all his staff and helped some

people see where their talents really lay. He was able to expose people to

opportunities they had not thought of and helped them to achieve unexpected

success.

He believes strongly in the value of fact-based decision making and the

awareness of processes and sees these as critical skills. In this agency, staff

has been exposed to quality measures and continual improvement over the past

few years. HP has been a leader in this effort and has been patient in teaching

others and participating in work groups that reinforce these issues.

His definition of a difficult employee is a person who is dishonest or who has no

passion for what he does. He takes this attitude as a challenge and makes an

effort to find out why the person is behaving in this way. He believes there must

be something wrong, since the person must be misplaced in his current position.

In order to handle the situation, HP would decide what would make the person

happy and would assess the person’s skills. The next decision would involve

how to strengthen positive skills and how to minimize the person’s exposure to

weak areas.
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He believes the primary job of a manager is to move people either up or out. If

one invests the time and energy early, this makes life easier. By confronting

problems early on, situations are handled better. Fear of things is worse than

actually completing the dreaded action.

Why managers fail in similar positions is simple. They do not focus on what the

job, and what it isn’t. One particular manager made the job much harder than it

needed to be by refusing to delegate tasks. As a result it seemed he did not trust

subordinates or the organization. In contrast, HP believes it is better to trust but

to also follow up to assure tasks are being completed.

Critical skills in others include an ability to coordinate and teach time

management, project management, and personnel management. A gifted

manager has understanding. He is able to hear what people are saying. He is

proactive, positive, and honest and has a passion for his work.

Three highest priorities in work life:

 Core personal belief system

 Honesty

 Making people feel good about themselves

These priorities also describe his managerial style. In observing him over the

past few years, HP is consistent in displaying these attributes.

 Challenge of Leadership

His five-year plan is abstract. He wants to craft a system of care that will deliver

the best possible outcomes to clients. It does not include personal job placement

since he wants to be in the place that gives him the best opportunity to achieve

his goal or legacy. Interestingly enough, HP and his wife have goals within their

family and marriage. In a recent conversation they went over their list and were

pleased to find that they had achieved all their major goals. Now they are

creating a new list for the future.

In order to train someone to assume his position, HP would want to work with the

person on communication and passion. He thinks other skills would flow if the

leader were honest and passionate.

Rating chart:

Managing personal stress 5

Orchestrating change 5
Managing Time 5
Delegating 5
Facilitating Group Decision Making 4
Goal Setting 4
Decision-Making 5
Listening 5
Identifying problems 4
Disciplining Others 2
Verbal communications 5
Interviewing 4
Performance evaluation 4
Empathizing 5
Motivating others 5
Team building 5
Managing conflict 5
Problem solving 5
Achieving self-awareness 5
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Conducting meetings 5
Gaining and using power 4
Negotiating 5

Once again, HP is able to work with employees enough that disciplining is rarely

necessary. He is continually doing most of the things on the list both on the job

and in his personal life.

Reflections

Both managers were exceptionally supportive to me and made time cheerfully to

meet with me. Both are busy people with lots of responsibility but they managed

to make me feel they had all the time in the world for me. I have been

contemplating why I chose these two particular people. Their history is different

but their values about people are the same. I value strong verbal skills and

supportive management so may have been drawn to people who are similar to

me. I also was very impressed with the confidence they displayed and the

competence both have in their daily work.

I think I can definitely use their philosophy and follow some of the examples they

discussed. I particularly liked the idea of helping people find their niche in the

system. One of the most discouraging things about our system is the backbiting

and daily jealousies between people who have a lot of history with one another.

This was an excellent opportunity to concentrate on core beliefs instead of petty

discussions.