A Time for Leaders, Not Managers

In my experience, when someone is in charge, they have two buckets to choose from when it comes to actually being in charge.

They can choose to lead, or they can choose to manage.

Which choice is correct is significantly dependent on the larger goals and operational context. There are plenty of situations where managing is the right choice. It strikes me that these are situations where outcomes are clearly defined and broadly understood, the person in charge is authorized to oversee the work, is ultimately responsible for those outcomes and the autonomy of individuals is secondary to the achievement of those outcomes.

Leadership strikes me as the right framework when what looks like success may be more contested than clear, and when the person at the top of the organizational pyramid does not have the authority to compel others to engage in activities in exactly the way the person in charge would wish.

Of course, these two things often combine. Leaders are required to also manage and managers can and should lead, but you can have only one as a lodestar.

Managing is more likely to focus on procedures and rules, adhering to an “objective” standard that can be justified as fair because it is the only standard available. Managing is less likely to question the underlying rationale for a standard, and whether or not that rationale holds up against the goal the standard is meant to represent. Effective managers require a kind of obeisance from those they manage in order to maintain smooth operations. This obeisance need not come via the absolute exercise of authority or direct command. A manager can inspire performance through various types of appeal. A manager can make it clear to those they manage that following the standards is in the individual’s own best interest, but a manager also maintains the threat of coercion if need be.

I learned this the hard way one summer during graduate school when I was working as a director of a YMCA day camp with ten counselors under my supervision. I thought that I could lead them by example to be responsible stewards of the campers’ activities. After all, didn’t we all want the same thing, to have a little fun while keeping these 120 seven- to twelve-year-olds occupied and safe?

As it turns out, the answer is no. I had one counselor whose goal seemed to be to see how much he could get away with without getting fired. After a week of trouble, I had to lay down explicit expectations, including not showing up so hungover (or still drunk) that you fall asleep sitting against a tree while your group of campers engage in what looked like Greco-Roman wrestling around you. The overall responsible counselors did not care for some of my rules, and not having a natural managerial disposition, I didn’t like enforcing them all that much, but they were 100% necessary.

Leadership requires the negotiating of competing and contrasting needs of different constituencies within the organization. Leadership in these situations means being able to move forward even when some or even all are disappointed to some degree or another. Leadership is also often oriented around values and principles rather than discrete and measurable outcomes. Leadership has to make space for difference and be prepared to absorb turbulence in order to maintain the status that allows the leader to lead.

Leading is extremely difficult, and even the best leaders can be overwhelmed by circumstances that make it impossible for them to continue to do the work. Managing well is also difficult, but doing it poorly is a significant accelerant to lots of bad stuff happening that will take a long time to recover from.

I think it should be clear which approach which makes more sense in the context of a higher education institution, and yet it seems to me, observing the recent actions of some institutional leaders, we would benefit from less managing, and more leading.

The choice of the upper administration at Indiana University to unilaterally change longstanding rules regarding student demonstrations (virtually in the middle of the night) followed by the calling in of the Indiana State Police to arrest faculty and students—an action overwatched by police snipers—strikes me as an extreme choice of choosing management over leadership. It’s maybe not coincidental the top administrators at Indiana University were recently subject to an overwhelming “no confidence” vote.

The ongoing situation at Columbia, as well as recent actions at the University of Georgia, Emory University, the University of Texas, and other institutions all strike me as responses of management in situations that require leadership. It seems as though these actions have been explicitly designed to bring certain campus constituencies to heel in order to end a disruption, but inevitably, these attempts appear to be leading to only greater unrest as people who demand leadership cannot be quieted by managerial appeals to rules and regulations, particularly when those rules appear arbitrary.

For an example of leadership, I’m impressed with this statement by Wesleyan University president Michael S. Roth who writes in clear, concise, plain language in a way that offers the context for the ongoing situation, why the university is responding as it has so far and what sorts of actions would trigger change. It acknowledges the challenge of the situation, and makes clear that there has been mutual dialog across different constituencies. It draws a line to “reject violence” and establishes a goal “sustainable peace”—two criteria that are likely to be widely shared.

It is a statement rooted in institutional principles and values, a contrast to the statement of University of Texas president Jay Hartzell which focused almost entirely on the university’s “rules.”

Hartzell’s statement uses the word “rules” six times. Roth’s uses it once when he shares that the encamped students on Wesleyan’s campus know they are breaking the rules, but also that Roth will not remove them as long as they do not interfere with the rights of others.

In this case, leadership has brought far more peace than management.

It’s impossible to know which administrations are managing and which are leading, but my guess is that the people who are leading are at places you’re never going to read about in the news.

My hope is that they’re more numerous than the managers.