Author: Jolanta Sēnele
Is it better to use a flowing or agile management method? Should you always be alone, or would it be better to be positive? What will ensure the best achievements? Well-intentioned leadership or management advice can sink into the sea, and there are academics who insist that most of them are completely stupid. Should we really forget about this, or should we keep a little bit of it?
Still, there are a few babbling academics in the Netherlands who insist that all of these are bears of fortune which you, as a leader, blindly follow. These are clearly popular, but all of this recipes for success are, at the end of the day, purely foolish and without any scholarly justification, they insist. We long for recipes, however. In a comparatively recent (2014) survey, Gallup found that in 82% of cases, companies choose incorrect managers. That means hiring those who do not have the talent that is necessary for the job. Choosing an appropriate manager, however, is like answering the question “to be or not to be.”
The same Gallup poll found that those who were appropriate represented just 10% of all working people, earning 48% more profits than an average manager. That only has to do with money. Still, the recipe provided by Gallup in terms of what composes talent is a powerful motivation related to the concept of “go to an unknown place.” For instance, “they (the appropriate managers) have relationships that ensure trust, open dialogue and complete transparency.” In that case, is it any wonder if we prefer a sentence such as “done is better than perfect “ (according to Facebook manager Sheryl Sandberg)? It may be inspirational, but instead of one person’s views, we would prefer something that is purely academic.
That gives us an opportunity to read, for instance, that the Red Cross or Tesco use one or another management style and has achieved these or other results if I am the manager of an advertising agency with ten employees. If we put knitters of pantyhose and bakers of buns into the same pot to create a quantitatively representative study, would that mean that we would not lose the context and would not start to follow some kind of non-existing statistical mediocrity?