We need leaders who inspire and motivate rather than intimidate and manipulate; who live with people to know their problems and live with God in order to solve them.
There has always been something that puzzles me about certain types of managers in relationship to their people. When thinking about Mary Kay's comment that there is a desparate need for inspirational and motivational leaders, rather than those that try to achieve results through manipulation and intimidation, it brings up a couple of things:
1. Is the one in managment truly management material? Inspiration and motivation doesn't necessarily mean charismatic, but it does mean that there is something exuding from an individual that sparks people to performance. A manager in one form or another must have this within them.
2. The other side of the picture is why should a manager have to intimidate or manipulate? The answer is that they aren't doing No. 1 above, or, there is someone that simply needs to be gotten rid of.
Intimidation and manipulation usually comes from frustration from not getting people to perform like they should. The problem is either with the manager or the worker; occasionally it may even be both.
Having said that, I like Mary Kay's second part of her statement where she says that business leaders need to "live with their people to know their problems..." To me this would solve an enormous amount of headaches in the workplace if leaders truly functioned this way.
The vast majority of people will respond to someone who has genuing concerns for their problems, and within reason, will help them to solve them. Sometimes it may mean changing some things in the workplace to accomodate them.
Why this is so powerful is that it makes the statement that a manager cares, but also undercuts those that truly are problems on the job and people won't mind it when you have to get rid of them. I've seen this happen many times.
Now the reason for doing this isn't for the purpose of getting rid of people easily, I'm just saying that when your people know you care about them, they understand when you have to make a tough decision about someone that just refused to do their job.
When you really try to help anyone to the best of your ability, it's amazing how they'll stand beside you when you have to make the decisions you sometimes have to. They know you're doing because you have to, rather than from the wrong motives. That pays great dividends in worker/management relations.
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