Leadership – understand-culture

“Lead, don‘t moderate“

Consensus: General agreement, unanimity, judgment arrived at by most of those concerned; group solidarity in sentiment and belief. From Latin consentire, cōnsēnsus agreement, from cōnsentiō meaning literally feel together.

For Americans, businesses, and therefore the teams within them, are not democracies. American team leads do not feel obligated to reach consensus within their leadership group in order to set strategy or to make a decision. Both sides of the relationship – leaders and led – are in agreement that the lead is paid to set strategy, make decisions, not to be a moderator.

Team members, as specialist in their areas, want and expect to be listened to. They want their input to have impact on the decision to be made, the strategy to be set. But they will and can not insist, without possibly damaging their working relationship with the team lead.

Decisive: having the power or quality of deciding; resolute, determined; unmistakable, unquestionable. Synonyms: firm, intent, purposeful, resolved, set, single-minded, do-or-die, hell-bent.

Presidents and Cabinets

President Lincoln held Cabinet meetings on Tuesdays and Fridays. These meetings were informal gatherings of equals with no formal structure or assigned seats. The President, however, preferred to deal with matters directly with individual members rather than have discussions with the full group.

Lincoln was deeply involved in the day-to-day affairs of the War Department. According to the diary of Gideon Welles, the president went to the War Department three to four times per day to look over communications in the telegraph office. Lincoln was known for his deliberative style, patiently listening to what his Cabinet members had to say before making a decision.

President Obama did not convene frequent Cabinet meetings during his first term. The meeting held in July 2012 was only the eighteenth. Obama does, however, hold daily meetings with White House advisors in which they discuss specific policies. The president reportedly prefers to understand problems with a high degree of detail. Some have criticized him for micromanaging his staff.

Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan are considered to be the classic examples of delegators. Both brought a broad, bold vision of the role of government to the White House, and each relied heavily upon staff, executive agencies, and cabinet heads to implement their policies. Not coincidentally, both were largely successful in advancing their agendas, though at opposite ends of the political spectrum. In the first two years of his presidency, George W. Bush had exhibited many of the leadership traits of Reagan and Roosevelt.

Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Jimmy Carter were known as micromanagers. As a former Senate majority leader, Johnson took an unusually active role in Congressional affairs, and was fond of monitoring the minutiae of the legislative process. He took a similar approach to managing the Vietnam War, picking many of the bombing targets himself during late-night strategy sessions with his generals.

Although Jimmy Carter campaigned as an outsider to the political system (having served one term as the governor of Georgia), he quickly developed a reputation as a “policy wonk” and micromanager. He was faulted for lacking the grand vision of previous presidents, and for obsessing over the administrative details of the office at the expense of seeing the big picture. It was reported that Carter once took time to resolve a scheduling dispute between staffers over the use of the White House tennis courts.

Richard Nixon’s leadership style has been described as “keeping his own counsel.” The thirty-seventh president had few advisors that he trusted, and rarely sought out dissenting opinions or advice from others. It is believed that Nixon’s mistrust of virtually everyone around him contributed to his downfall following the Watergate break-in.

Mentor

Mentor: A trusted counselor or guide; tutor, coach; from Greek Mentōr. First known use 1616. Mentoring has become popular within American, and other, companies. It asks an experienced senior-level colleague to provide advice to a less experienced, junior-level colleague. American managers will seek advice wherever they can find it, as long as it is sound, helpful, and most importantly discreet.

Team Sports

How a society fundamentally defines the everyday working relationship between leader and led, is imbedded in how that society teaches its young people to compete in athletics. In its most popular sports. If that working relationship does not function well, the team loses.

It is no coincidence that the terms common to American teams sports are used time and again in the American business context. For the overwhelming majority of Americans have experience neither in the military nor in politics.

Other than being a member of a family, participating in team sports is the most common experience Americans, especially youths, have in a team context. And for those whose days of playing in a team are past, most remain fans of those sports. Teams sports in America form how Americans work in teams. The relationship between coaches and players is very much the model, or the mold, for the relationship between team lead and team.

The American sports tradition involves a close working relationship between leader and led, between the coaching staff and the players.

The coach and coaching staff in American football are the dominant actors during the game without stepping onto the field. They determine not only the strategy, but also the tactics. Both they can change quickly.

The rules of the game limit in no way when, how often, which and how many players they can substitute. Nor are there any restrictions on team formations on the field.

The coaching staff in almost all circumstances calls the individual offensive and defensive plays via direct communication with designated players: the quarterback on offense, the middle linebacker or safety on defense.

Playbooks are extensive descriptions of what each player does in a given play. They are detailed and prescriptive in nature. Depending on the position there is no to little room for variation.

During breaks in play, as well as changes in ball possession, the coaching staffs instruct directly their players on the details of execution. In other words, teaching occurs during the game.

American football is a very tightly managed and scripted sport, in many ways a sophisticated chess match between opposing coaching staffs. The television and radio commentators refer time and again to what decisions the coaches are making during the game: strategy, tactics, player substitutions, play-calling, time management.

Basketball – invented in 1891 by James Naismith, a Canadian-American, while teaching physical education in Springfield, Massachusetts – is also a sport dominated by the coaches. It has all of the characteristics of American football.

The teams of five players are smaller. The lines of communication between coaches and players are shorter and more direct. Although there are fewer set plays memorized from a playbook, the coaches can determine more directly how their team plays.

The chess match character is particularly evident during the final minutes of close games with coaches standing on the side of the court directing their players in real time, substituting players rapidly based on ball possession, and calling timeouts in order to give them explicit instructions.

Although baseball is in many ways a different kind of sport than American football and basketball, its rules and how the sport is played very much echoes the coach-player relationships in football and basketball.

It is the coaching staff who decides who pitches the ball, what pitches are chosen, when they are pitched. The coaching staff also instructs to a certain degree the batter on when to swing at which pitches. When players are on base as runners, they too are given instructions on when or when not to attempt to steal a base.

American colleges recruit their athletes from high schools across the nation. The athletes are often offered full tuition scholarships to play a sport at a university. Top basketball players are identified as early as in their 8th or 9th grade. The best players will be recruited during their junior year of high school.

This is a very personal process which consists of a dialogue between the university‘s head coach and player during his or her lasts one pr two years. Although there are many deciding factors in where a player decides which school to attend, the personal relationship with the coach is one of the most important.

American Football play-calling

Calling a play in American football is a complex process. During any one given play each of the players on a team has a different, specific, scripted role to play.

Who calls the plays? Either the head coach or the offensive coordinator. In some situations the quarterback.

How is the play communicated to the players? The quarterback may have a speaker in his helmet connecting him with the coaches. A substitute player can be sent in with the play. The play can be communicated from the sidelines via hand signals.

More and more teams are using a no-huddle offense to speed the game up. Players take their positions as quickly as possible, and get their assignments from the quarterback or from the coaches on the sideline.

Chain of Command

Chain of command: A series of executive positions in order of authority. First known use 1898.

Americans favor clear lines of authority, also called chain of command. This is indicated in their organizational structures – more vertical than matrix – and in the titles given to those in the various management positions. American management, for example, does not look favorably upon team members who develop close relations with higher levels within the chain of command.

The chain of command in the U.S. Department of State is: Secretary, Deputy Secretary, Under Secretary, Assistant Secretary, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Office Director, Deputy Office Director, Desk Officer. Government bureaucracies like titles.

The chain of command in an American corporation can include: executive board (CEO, COO, CFO, etc.), senior vice president, vice president, managing director, deputy managing director, director, senior manager, manager, supervisor, specialist, technician, associate. American corporations like titles, too.

Insubordination

Discipline: Punishment; a field of study; training that corrects, molds, or perfects the mental faculties or moral character; control gained by enforcing bedience or order; orderly or prescribed conduct or pattern of behavior; a rule or system of rules governing conduct or activity. From Latin disciplina teaching, learning, from discipulus pupil. First known use 13th century.

Cohesion: The act or state of sticking together tightly; union between similar plant parts or organs; molecular attraction by which the particles of a body are united throughout the mass; Latin cohaesus, past participle of cohaerēre. First known use 1660.

Subordination: Subordination: Placed in or occupying a lower class, rank, or position, inferior; submissive to or controlled by authority. Middle English subordinat, from Medieval Latin subordinatus, from Latin sub- + ordinare to order. First known use 15th century.

Insubordination: Disobedient to authority. First known use 1828.

Insurrection: An act or instance of revolting against civil authority or an established government; Middle English insureccion, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin insurrection-, insurrectio, from insurgere. First knownuse 15th century.

Rebellion: Opposition to one in authority or dominance; open, armed, and usually unsuccessful defiance of or resistance to an established government; an instance of such defiance or resistance. First known use 14th century.

Mutiny: Forcible or passive resistance to lawful authority; concerted revolt against discipline or a superior officer. From Latin movēre to move. First known use 1540.

Execution Wins

Execution: To carry out fully; put completely into effect; to do what is provided or required; to make or produce (as a work of art) especially by carrying out a design; to perform properly or skillfully the fundamentals of a sport or of a particular play; to perform indicated tasks according to encoded instructions, as in a computer program or routine. Latin exsecutio, from exsequi to execute, from ex- + sequi to follow. Synonyms: accomplish, achieve, discharge, enact, fulfill, implement, pursue.

Americans believe that an athletic team with less talent, a military unit smaller in size, an enterprise with limited resources can win the game, defeat the enemy, succeed in the market, if it executes its strategy in a focused and disciplined way.

And critical to execution is unity. One can see the signs of a unified team: the members of an athletic team wear their uniforms in the same way; a military unit moves in formation; a company has a certain ethos or spirit.

Nuts and Bolts

In the U.S. business environment, managers expect to be kept informed of even small developments in projects under their supervision. In practice this means that managers are often cc’ed on routine emails relating to the „nuts and bolts“ of a project, even if the content of the email does not require input from the manager. This practice is done to ensure that the manager has situational awareness of his team members’ work.

Revisiting a Decision

Revisiting: A term used by Americans to describe the act of questioning a decision made by senior-level management after much time and effort had been invested. Such decisions are typically of strategic nature.

Americans consider “revisiting as decision” as hindering, slowing down or blocking their implementation, and thus a threat to overall success. There is low tolerance in the American business for the tactical level revisiting decisions made at the strategic level.

Empowerment: To give official authority or legal power to; to enable; to promote the self-actualization or influence. First known use 1648.

The term empowerment has become popular in the American business context, signaling a desire, perhaps also need, for management to be less involved in the tactical execution of their decisions.