Leadership - not management - brings most success to companies
companies is the key to attaining emotional commitment in
employees, teams and customers that will ultimately lead to
stronger results, according to business strategist Stan Slap.
But most companies instinctively discourage the most successful kind of leadership because they fear a loss of control, he claims.
Addressing an audience of food industry executives at the World Grains Summit earlier this week, Slap presented a leadership solution he has previously applied in a diverse range of consultancies, including with Microsoft, E-Bay, the IRS and the government of Northern Ireland.
Developed after ten years of research involving 10,000 managers in 70 counties, the proposed business strategy focuses on maintaining core personal values in the work environment.
According to Slap, normally embedded in the job of a manager is the commitment to subordinate personal values in order to focus exclusively on the company's needs. However, this personal detachment, he says, means that managers are often leaving what is best about who they are at home.
Of the 10,000 managers who participated in Slap's research, the vast majority cited family and integrity as their deepest personal values. Yet these same individuals also cited these two values as the ones they were most ready to compromise in order to do their job successfully.
"Companies expect you to see them as your family, your commitment is to them, to protecting their numbers. But external reinforcement will not substantially trigger internal motivation in a human being," he said.
The result: managers often end up focusing exclusively on the external development of their company, without tackling the core issues that will ultimately strengthen the business from the inside.
But this can be achieved through retaining personal values at work, claims Slap.
"A leader must turn their values into a compelling cause for people around them. People are dying for the reinforcement and righteous purposefulness that leadership provides. You must use leadership to make life and working conditions better for your people," he said.
"If you have family as a value, bring this to work. Apply open communication and unconditional support to your team, act as a family. Share the good and the bad in people's home and work life. It's employee culture that votes you in or takes you out. You don't make your own leadership."
A manager's bottom-line message is "work harder," according to Slap. A leader's message is "live better". And if the leader's message gets through, the manager's message will ultimately be met with more success.
Employee cynicism when faced with this sudden interest in their well-being is not an obstacle. "Cynicism doesn't mean people don't care. It means it hurts to care. They may be disgusted but they certainly won't be disinterested."
As for the company itself: "a company will buy any reasonable action you take that produces business results."
According to Slap, once a manager emotionally commits himself to his job, he becomes a leader. This kind of commitment, he says, is what "solves unsolvable problems, creates energy when all energy has been seemingly been expended, and ignites emotional commitment in others - employees, teams and customers."
"As a manager, your most important responsibility is to your company. As a leader, it's to yourself. You'll never really work for your company unless your company works for you."
Slap, whose keynote presentation opened the World Grains Summit in San Francisco earlier this week, plans to publish his leadership strategy - Bury my Heart at Conference Room B - in a book next year.
