Littlehendrick
Newbie
What is it? How does the “bottom” of the workers create/influence/shape the work environment and our peers and superiors?
Army job positions tend to fall into two categories, leadership and staff. As I am finally adjusting to my first real “staff” job after 5.5 years, I have been challenged with the idea of “organizational leadership.” Previously, I was always fortunate to have the chance to serve/lead Soldiers, both directly, and indirectly at most removed as an XO. Now I am in a shop, where I am the low man on the totem pole, and everyone I work with is either a peer, or outranks me.
I have come to realize this is probably a very common situation for folks within P&S. You may have folks you are responsible for, but many may not. And part of P&S is making not only ourselves, but our organizations better.
So how do we do that? How do we influence our bosses and peers when we lack the authority, and in many ways have different ways of influencing them?
My questions are:
1) How can we shape culture, especially when you are not in the “leadership” role?
2) How do we help our leaders/bosses?
3) How do we balance providing feedback, versus directly accomplishing the task? (Very personality driven, and that is worth talking about!)
4) What do you do when your boss is wrong? From little things on how a process is done, to blatant lies? How do we approach peers and bosses (especially ones who have significant impact on future jobs and evaluations)?
5) How do we balance the risk of mistakes/developing others when we often work in a “no failure” type of organization? If we are truly attempting to develop folks, mistakes are bound to happen.
What follows I hope is a discussion starter, as I said before, I am a bit under 6 years in and have much to learn, especially now working the “staff” side. Please feel free to tell me where you disagree with me.
1) Be a good follower. In the end, we have to follow all lawful orders, even if we disagree with our bosses (toxic management may branch into another topic some day, as it seems to be a bigger issue than I expected). Doing our job to the best of our ability allows us the ability to build credibility within our group.
2) Professional research and knowledge. Be the source folks go to for what is the “right” answer versus “we always did it that way.” In the Army for where I am at, that means reading Doctrine (and training circulars), in order to speak the professional language, which I have found to help when talking between 1-3 ranks higher than myself.
3) Be honest. Provide feedback when asked. Propose solutions to a problem set when presented. I feel that this “honesty” is one of the largest sources of friction in organizations. I see this develops from the leader feeling “attacked” that someone disagrees, or has another idea. Clearly, some bosses are more open to this than others. So how do we remain tactful/professional while attempting to help steer our organization towards being better?
4) Provide solutions when challenging the status quo. If attempting to change from “we always did it this way,” what’s the purpose of change? Were we blantantly wrong, or just possibly inefficient? Over time regulations, policies, and manuals change, with the 2nd/3rd/etc order of effect of changing processes, briefings, and SOPs.
5) Own mistakes, but move on from them. Demonstrate that you are part of a learning organization that will get better. Never be afraid to show where you can improve, and show how you have a plan for yourself to get better.
Thanks for reading if you had stuck around this long, I would love to hear your take on what “organizational leadership” is. It doesn’t have to be military based for it to work, as the civilian sector often has more chances of leadership from the bottom.
Army job positions tend to fall into two categories, leadership and staff. As I am finally adjusting to my first real “staff” job after 5.5 years, I have been challenged with the idea of “organizational leadership.” Previously, I was always fortunate to have the chance to serve/lead Soldiers, both directly, and indirectly at most removed as an XO. Now I am in a shop, where I am the low man on the totem pole, and everyone I work with is either a peer, or outranks me.
I have come to realize this is probably a very common situation for folks within P&S. You may have folks you are responsible for, but many may not. And part of P&S is making not only ourselves, but our organizations better.
So how do we do that? How do we influence our bosses and peers when we lack the authority, and in many ways have different ways of influencing them?
My questions are:
1) How can we shape culture, especially when you are not in the “leadership” role?
2) How do we help our leaders/bosses?
3) How do we balance providing feedback, versus directly accomplishing the task? (Very personality driven, and that is worth talking about!)
4) What do you do when your boss is wrong? From little things on how a process is done, to blatant lies? How do we approach peers and bosses (especially ones who have significant impact on future jobs and evaluations)?
5) How do we balance the risk of mistakes/developing others when we often work in a “no failure” type of organization? If we are truly attempting to develop folks, mistakes are bound to happen.
What follows I hope is a discussion starter, as I said before, I am a bit under 6 years in and have much to learn, especially now working the “staff” side. Please feel free to tell me where you disagree with me.
1) Be a good follower. In the end, we have to follow all lawful orders, even if we disagree with our bosses (toxic management may branch into another topic some day, as it seems to be a bigger issue than I expected). Doing our job to the best of our ability allows us the ability to build credibility within our group.
2) Professional research and knowledge. Be the source folks go to for what is the “right” answer versus “we always did it that way.” In the Army for where I am at, that means reading Doctrine (and training circulars), in order to speak the professional language, which I have found to help when talking between 1-3 ranks higher than myself.
3) Be honest. Provide feedback when asked. Propose solutions to a problem set when presented. I feel that this “honesty” is one of the largest sources of friction in organizations. I see this develops from the leader feeling “attacked” that someone disagrees, or has another idea. Clearly, some bosses are more open to this than others. So how do we remain tactful/professional while attempting to help steer our organization towards being better?
4) Provide solutions when challenging the status quo. If attempting to change from “we always did it this way,” what’s the purpose of change? Were we blantantly wrong, or just possibly inefficient? Over time regulations, policies, and manuals change, with the 2nd/3rd/etc order of effect of changing processes, briefings, and SOPs.
5) Own mistakes, but move on from them. Demonstrate that you are part of a learning organization that will get better. Never be afraid to show where you can improve, and show how you have a plan for yourself to get better.
Thanks for reading if you had stuck around this long, I would love to hear your take on what “organizational leadership” is. It doesn’t have to be military based for it to work, as the civilian sector often has more chances of leadership from the bottom.