Concrete Products

SEP 2012

Concrete Products covers the issues that attract producers of ready mixed and manufactured concrete focusing on equipment and material technology, market development and management topics.

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MANAGEMENT BY DAVID E. SHEDD WE NEED LESS LEADERSHIP! In her thought-provoking book, The End of Leadership, Barbara Kellerman writes: "One of the problems plaguing the leadership in- dustry is its fixation on developing good leaders, while ignoring completely the problem of stopping or at least slowing bad leaders. Stopping bad leadership is as im- portant as creating good leadership." Based on my experience with turn- arounds and re-igniting growth at stag- nant companies, I agree fully. The problem at all of these stagnating or declining companies was that there was too much of the wrong kind of leadership; there was too much bad leadership. Too Many Jerks. So many top leaders are really jerks, full of themselves and willing to do what it takes and to crush whomever it takes to advance their own career. Just ask around in your company, everyone knows who these bullies and blockheads are. Be warned: if you are the leader of the company, the jerk leaders that report to you are undermining your strategic vision and cultural values every single day. Too Much Going On. Employees at strug- gling companies inevitably are working harder than those at successful companies. Their leaders are deluging them with initia- tives, programs, and re-organizations to, ostensibly, right the ship. In reality, all these activities create extra work and con- fusion for the team. And they create the il- lusion of progress for the leadership team. Too Much Focus on the Wrong Thing. We see this all the time: Companies focus- ing on operations when they have a sales, marketing or customer service issue. Com- panies failing in their current market, who grasp at straws by entering countless new markets (what Jim Collins calls "the undis- ciplined pursuit of more"). Too Many Leaders and Too Many Lay- ers. Why have so many companies deci- mated the ranks of the front-line workers and left the ranks of top management un- touched? If any of your managers have fewer than six to eight direct reports, are you really as lean and efficient as you think? With all these leaders and layers of management (especially in matrix or- ganizations), you end up with the "by- stander effect." The company is failing and the right things are not getting down. Yet, lo and behold, nobody is re- sponsible for the failure because leader- ship accountability is so diluted. Too Much Micro-Management. Do you really need daily (or twice weekly) staff meetings? Do you need all the @#*^%@ other meetings? Do you have to check in with your team every two hours? Do you have to know everything that is going on? Do you have to comment and add your two cents to every e-mail, memo, and Power- Point presentation? Such rampant micro- management by the leader demoralizes the team, undermines its accountability, and emasculates sense of ownership. By eliminating the bad leadership, you will immediately have better overall leadership at your company. Soon, you will also have higher employee engage- ment, improved customer satisfaction, and a stronger business. WWW.CONCRETEPRODUCTS.COM SEPTEMBER 2012 | 11

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