{"id":896,"date":"2014-01-08T11:18:14","date_gmt":"2014-01-08T00:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/?p=896"},"modified":"2014-01-08T11:18:14","modified_gmt":"2014-01-08T00:18:14","slug":"hbr-blogs-leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/?p=896","title":{"rendered":"HBR Blogs &#8211; leadership"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>moving from being a fire fighter to a fire chief &#8211; getting more strategic<\/li>\n<li>moving away from being the doer-in-chief<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"pageHeadline\">\n<div>\n<h1 id=\"pageTitle\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.hbr.org\/\">HBR Blog Network<\/a><\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"pageFeature\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"20131218_3\" src=\"http:\/\/hbrblogs.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/12\/20131218_3.jpg?w=580\" width=\"580\" height=\"215\" \/><\/p>\n<h1 id=\"articleTitle\">Doing Less, Leading More<\/h1>\n<p>by Ed Batista\u00a0\u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0 10:00 AM December 17, 2013<\/p>\n<p><a style=\"line-height: 1.5;\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.hbr.org\/2013\/12\/doing-less-leading-more\/#disqus_thread\" data-disqus-identifier=\"tag:blogs.harvardbusiness.org,2007-03-31:999.27584\"><span style=\"color: #2b2b2b; line-height: 1.5;\">Our first accomplishments as professionals are usually rooted in our skill as individual contributors. In most fields we add value in the early stages of our careers by getting things done. We\u2019re fast, we\u2019re efficient, and we do high-quality work. In a word, we\u2019re\u00a0<\/span><i style=\"color: #2b2b2b; line-height: 1.5;\">doers.<\/i><span style=\"color: #2b2b2b; line-height: 1.5;\">\u00a0But when we carry this mindset into our first leadership roles, we confuse\u00a0<\/span><i style=\"color: #2b2b2b; line-height: 1.5;\">doing<\/i><span style=\"color: #2b2b2b; line-height: 1.5;\">\u00a0with\u00a0<\/span><i style=\"color: #2b2b2b; line-height: 1.5;\">leading<\/i><span style=\"color: #2b2b2b; line-height: 1.5;\">. We believe that by working longer, harder, and smarter than our team, we\u2019ll inspire by example. \u00a0Sometimes this has the desired effect\u2013as Daniel Goleman wrote in his HBR article \u201c<\/span><\/a><a style=\"line-height: 1.5;\" href=\"http:\/\/hbr.org\/2000\/03\/leadership-that-gets-results\/\">Leadership that Gets Results<\/a><span style=\"line-height: 1.5;\">,\u201d this \u201cpacesetting\u201d leadership style \u201cworks well when all employees are self-motivated, highly competent, and need little direction or coordination.\u201d But the pacesetting style can also carry a high cost \u2013 Goleman notes that it \u201cdestroys climate [and] many employees feel overwhelmed by the pacesetter\u2019s demands.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"articleBody\">\n<p>Instead simply\u00a0<i>doing more<\/i>, sustaining our success as leaders requires us to redefine how we add value. Continuing to rely on our abilities as individual contributors greatly limits what we actually contribute and puts us at a disadvantage to peers who are better able to mobilize and motivate others. In other words we need to\u00a0<i>do less<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0<i>lead more<\/i>. Sometimes this transition is obvious and dramatic, such as when we\u2019re promoted and obtain our first direct reports or hire our first employees. Suddenly we need to expand our behavioral repertoire to incorporate new leadership styles as a means of influencing others effectively. (\u201cLeadership That Gets Results\u201d provides a useful roadmap here, highlighting the styles that have the greatest positive impact or are used less frequently by managers.)<\/p>\n<p>Subsequent transitions may be more subtle and nuanced, such as when we go from leading front-line staff to leading managers, who themselves must navigate this same transition. A coaching client realized that he was running his company as though he were the \u201cDoer-in-Chief,\u201d and this model of leadership had permeated throughout the organization and was holding everyone back. He revamped his role, delegating almost all of the tasks on his to-do list to his senior managers and had them do the same to their direct reports. Rather than simply creating more work for junior employees, this emphasis on leading rather than doing resulted in greater efficiencies throughout the company. In my client\u2019s words, \u201cWe went from being firefighters to being fire marshals,\u201d taking a more strategic approach to the business, redesigning inefficient systems, and solving problems before they became crises.<\/p>\n<p>This emphasis on\u00a0<i>leading<\/i>\u00a0and not merely\u00a0<i>doing<\/i>\u00a0has had a profound impact on management education. In 2010 Dean\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.gsb.stanford.edu\/users\/saloner\">Garth Saloner<\/a>\u00a0of the Stanford Graduate School of Business (where I\u2019m an Instructor) told McKinsey that, \u201cThe harder skills of finance and supply chain management and accounting\u2026have become what you think of as a hygiene factor: everybody ought to know this\u2026 But the softer skill sets, the real leadership, the ability to work with others and through others, to execute, that is still in very scarce supply.\u201d We expect our students to have solid technical and analytical skills\u2014to be effective\u00a0<i>doers.<\/i>\u00a0But we also expect that within a few years of graduation our students will be managing people who are even more technically and analytically capable than they are\u2014and this requires them to be effective\u00a0<i>leaders.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Many of my executive coaching clients and MBA students at Stanford are going through a transition that involves a step up to the next level in some way. They\u2019re on the cusp of a big promotion, or they\u2019ve launched a startup, or their company just hit some major milestone. Very few, if any, of these people would say that they\u2019ve \u201cmade it\u201d; they\u2019re still overcoming challenges in pursuit of ambitious goals. And yet their current success has created a meaningful inflection point in their careers; things are going to be different from now on. The nature of this difference varies greatly from one person to another, but I see a set of common themes that I think of as \u201cthe problems of success.\u201d You can read my\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.hbr.org\/2013\/11\/learning-to-say-no-is-part-of-success\/\">first<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.hbr.org\/2013\/12\/happy-workaholics-need-boundaries-not-balance\/\">second<\/a>\u00a0posts on \u201cthe problems of success.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"jp-post-flair\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"articleFooter\">\n<div>\n<div id=\"articleFooterMoreBy\">More blog posts by\u00a0<a title=\"Posts by Ed Batista\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.hbr.org\/ed-batista\/\" rel=\"author\">Ed Batista<\/a><\/div>\n<div id=\"articleFooterCategories\">More on:\u00a0<a title=\"View all posts in Leadership\" href=\"http:\/\/hbr.org\/search\/leadership\/0\" rel=\"category tag\">Leadership<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"pageFooterAuthor\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"80-ed-batista\" src=\"http:\/\/hbrblogs.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/09\/80-ed-batista.jpg?w=80\" width=\"80\" height=\"80\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<h3><a title=\"Posts by Ed Batista\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.hbr.org\/ed-batista\/\" rel=\"author\">ED BATISTA<\/a><\/h3>\n<p>Ed Batista (<a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/edbatista\">@edbatista<\/a>) is an executive coach and an Instructor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He writes regularly on issues related to coaching and professional development at\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.edbatista.com\/\">edbatista.com<\/a>, he contributed to the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/hbr.org\/product\/hbr-guide-to-coaching-your-employees\/an\/17065-KND-ENG\">HBR Guide to Coaching Your Employees<\/a>, and is currently writing a book on self-coaching for HBR Press.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>moving from being a fire fighter to a fire chief &#8211; getting more strategic moving away from being the doer-in-chief &nbsp; HBR Blog Network Doing Less, Leading More by Ed Batista\u00a0\u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0 10:00 AM December 17, 2013 Our first accomplishments as professionals are usually rooted in our skill as individual contributors. In most fields we add &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/?p=896\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">HBR Blogs &#8211; leadership<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-management-and-leadership"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=896"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":897,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896\/revisions\/897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}