The debate on leaders versus managers is an ongoing debate since a very long time. It’s not surprising to see that the debate intensity has increased since the crisis. Some say there has been:

• too much leadership creating a superior vision and taking decisions whilst losing the necessary sense of reality. Dragging people and companies unnoticed into trouble.
• too little leadership because leadership is too often linked to charismatic leaders. The CEO as the captain under which leadership the organisation is led to unrivaled performance.
• too little management who should be capable of managing the execution.

And where does entrepreneurship fit in all of this?

A lot has been written and discussed ranging from charismatic leadership, Level 5 leadership, transformational leadership,…. The characteristics of the so called must have leadership profile is a long list that is impossible to find in a single mortal human being. Marc Buelens (Vlerick Leuven Ghent management school) wrote in a recent column:  ”Leaders need to combine the charm of Kennedy with the vision of Branson, the stubbornness of  Thatcher and able to speech like Obama”

I suppose that most of us agree that the world and business in itself has become too complex to be mastered by a single individual. A lot of people tend to think that the CEO can make the difference. A comparison with soccer is in place since many analysis have shown that changing the coach during the season never contributed to major result improvements.  I’m pretty confident that the future will show the same in the vast amount of cases where the CEO had to leave the scene as being responsible for bad results. CEOs at the same time should better think twice before contributing superior company results to their mastery.

Even management teams are no longer able to provide all the answers in the same way as sales has converted into a team-sport. I’m seeing over and over again how management teams are trying to come up with all the answers themselves. As a result expecting people to change and behave differently without a need to change themselves.

I’m therefore convinced that the whole debate is besides the point. since everything starts with an undiluted DNA. The following picture shows the logical levels needed in order to release the full human potential within your organisation. 

What we need is management innovation which includes getting ride of industrial age practices. Typical to those ideas are central and formalized processes trying to influence human behavior. Converting people into machines leaving their brain at the door when coming to work. Resulting in managers fighting battles ad hoc, rarely solving the underlying causes. Fighting symptoms, they’re unable to create a scalable value chain and properly utilize the human potential of the entire team. This need to change in order to realise your companies growth potential.
Leadership must be attuned to the information age, where progress is stimulated and jobs are managed – not people.

When will managers accept that they can’t control nor own the knowledge inside peoples head. We talk about the knowledge worker age but managers typically behave inversely.

 You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”Gandhi”