Peanut manager vs Chewing gum manager vs Tail-wagging manager: Who are you blessed with?

It was supposed to be a call, but I took a flight across the Atlantic to meet the CEO. It’s a story from my early days as an IT services company CEO. A big US-based client had decided to give their prestigious outsourcing contract to one of our competitors. Not giving up hope, I called their CEO and asked her for five minutes. She graciously agreed to do the call at 9 AM EST to avoid inconvenience since I was in India.

After disconnecting the call, I decided to do the unimaginable! I drove straight from the office to the Delhi airport, took a flight, landed in New York at 7 in the morning, and by 9 AM, I was at her office. I went in, and she said with some surprise, “We were supposed to have a call.” I said, “How many people will fly across the Atlantic just to have a 5-minute chat with you?” We finally won the deal, and my own organisation's transformation gained momentum.

Doing the unimaginable and creating impact is very important if you want to transition from a manager to becoming a leader. Doing the unimaginable will enable you to break fresh ground and create winning positions that invigorate the team you lead. Gartner’s Maverick research discusses edgy thinking to enable business leaders to gain a competitive advantage. Leaders should think beyond “best practices” and consider game-changing moves that will bring success to their organisations.

One other thing. Being a maverick who can successfully pull off stunts is only one part of the story. To be consistent in doing the unimaginable and becoming a true leader also requires some solid groundwork, discipline and behaviour traits that must be imbibed. Disciplined and consistent work in specific areas is a must-do for a leader to fire up and sustain the unimaginable.

Leaders typically do three things well: create impact, inspire, and lead. In this article, I would like to focus on how Leaders do things differently from Managers by creating or doing things that result in Impact.

However, that would make this article entirely predictable, and I am sure you would have read it 100 times. So why don’t we flip the idea on its head and talk of three kind of managers who would never succeed as leaders?

The Peanut Manager

Have you ever wondered why they serve peanuts at a bar before your drink? In my mind, salted peanuts distract you from the taste of a poorly mixed drink. It’s a distraction.

Peanut manager at the workplace is distracted by C-category issues away from the fundamental questions around strategy, competitiveness and employee motivation. I find such managers obsess over time sheets, reviews, meetings and more meetings, make promises they will not keep, send appreciation mail that looks fishy, a

employee of the month chosen out of their hat and yes, giving feedback which leaves an employee confused.

Great leaders work hard to remain undistracted and work hard on their ability to prioritise things and clearly communicate to the team about the tasks (A Category) that need to be solved first and which can be dealt with later (C Category). If you know what “not to do”, what “needs to get done” will grab your attention and that is the starting point to do the unimaginable.

The Chewing Gum Manager

Chewing gums by design are designed to be chewed without being swallowed. The chewing gum manager’s indecision slows down the team and pushes it into zone of uncertainty. Then the chewing gum manager sticks the blame on one of the employees and moves on to the next gum.

The second trait important for a leader is quick and effective decision-making which should not be confused with taking instant decisions. Quick decision-making is about giving a timeline to make a decision and sticking to it. The leader should take enough time to ensure that the decisions that he makes are well thought through and are effective and impactful decisions that set the platform to do the unimaginable.

The Maze Manager

Imagine being in a maze running around with the goal of getting out. The maze manager is trapped by two thoughts. First, let me run behind the crowd as they must know what I don’t. Second, let me run behind the biggest cheese so that I get rich quickly. Unfortunately, maze managers do not look at data and apply their own mind to chart a direction different from others.

Data is like a compass, and teams will become directionless if the strategy is not evolved based on data and logic and then a bit of intuition. Great leaders do rely on intuition however they first see distance signals in the data and then imagine a future different from others to set the direction to do the unimaginable.

The Tail-Wagging Manager

I did say three kinds however by now you know I don’t believe in rules. My favourite manager is a tail-wagging manager who is out to do everything to please her/his boss. It’s the unfortunate truth of our times that they go miles before they self-implode out of sheer incompetence.

A true leader drives her/his power from their teams and not from their boss. I have always felt that the traditional feedback or appraisal mechanism is insufficient to create impactful leaders. Input from the boss will give a unidimensional view which is not enough for her/him to get the full picture of the things they need to keep doing, things that they need to stop doing and things that they need to improve upon.

I have tried the 360-degree appraisal technique to create transformative and impact leaders in organisations and it was magical. A leader must take feedback from their peers as well as from the teams that they lead. For a leader, such feedbacks are stardust if he or she acts on them with positive energy. Only then such a leader will become confident in trying the unimaginable and creating true impact, along with his or her team.

The desire to do the unimaginable burns in all of us. However, it needs hard and smart work to make it a reality.