It’s not voodoo?

Pick a classical text book on organization and management and you will find at least a couple chapters dedicated to dynamics of leading groups and projects. It is still quite funny how roles are designed for to fail and people miss some of these finer points. Projects don’t fail on account of the leadership or lack of knowledge but because the miss the essential ingredients of authority and responsibility.

I believe our understanding has lot to do with hierarchies we are familiar with starting with family, the church, our social and political leaders and finally what we hear from our parents and elders during our impressionable years. Although all organizations are different their structures are based on the culture of the specific organization. Some flatter than others while others deeper than others. Hierarchies result in titles, however unique the organizations structure the titles communicates a certain level of authority.

Accountability is very essential to leverage this authority. As the chief if one is not accountable for the organizations direction, there is little incentive in leveraging this authority. The entire organization can sit relax and enjoy drinks in a pub all day until end of time or end of money which ever comes first. On the flip side if an individual is responsible for the direction of the organization, goals and objectives but does not have access to the right resources and lacks the ability to promise a carrot or a stick in exchange for the services, the individual may be incapable of delivering.

I have come across multiple articles on leadership and often times they sound like voodoo to me. But come to think of it what really is leadership? Recently I received an email from HBR talking about leadership as “Action that inspires action”, I beg to differ because I could work emotions, carrots and sticks to inspire action.

To me it is truly the right mix of authority and responsibility.