Management vs. Leadership

By Coach Ron Wolforth –

Management vs. Leadership
Be a Leader Whenever Possible, Your Life Will Be Much Richer for It

 

“What I learned most in my time in the SEALs are these two profound truths: 1) There are no bad teams, just bad leaders, and 2) We all must make a daily choice. Either we choose to lead our team in growing inside a very chaotic, messy, difficult, and unjust world, or we choose to manage our team in its slow decline and deterioration, hoping beyond hope that superstars in our midst will arise and save us from ourselves and our atrophy.”

-Marcus Luttrell, retired United States Navy SEAL and Navy Cross and Purple Heart Recipient

 

Simon Sinek, one of my favorite motivational speakers, often says that today we are experiencing a crisis in leadership. We are in desperate need of quality leadership in almost every area of our culture.

I obviously respect Sinek very much. However, I would assert that since the beginning of time, man has constantly and continually been in desperate need of leadership. This “leadership gap”, so to speak, is not a new phenomenon. The world has been dominated by the mechanistic philosophy of “management” for a long time now.

Stephen Covey in his classic, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, points out that highly effective people manage systems and processes and lead people. Human beings do not want to be managed… They want to be inspired. They want to be motivated. They want to be a part of something bigger than themselves. In short, they want to be led.

It’s far, far, far easier to manage than it is to lead. Leadership is an incredibly difficult task to perform well over time. Leadership is often messy, progress is frequently uneven, and the need for transformation and reconfiguration is constant.

Management is far easier: You primarily judge results, you hold people accountable, you try to control and shape behavior, you levy bonuses or consequences based on those results and, if needed, you fire and/or replace.

One major problem.

Management without leadership is almost always impersonal. Management leads to bureaucracy. Bureaucracy leads to groupthink, confirmation bias, and stagnation. Stagnation inevitably leads to the collapse of the very culture it was entrusted to manage.

We often use the terms “family” and “team” to describe a high-functioning culture. That is not only very true, but it is also, in my opinion, incredibly instructive.

In a healthy family culture, one doesn’t fire or trade their children or parents. You are in it together… win or lose… through ups and downs… thick or thin… feast or famine.

Management, in a vast majority of organizations in today’s society, is decidedly different.

In management, things like loyalty, allegiance, and devotion are very dependent upon the results and outcomes of the individual contributor, worker, or performer. It is a very “what have you done for us lately” mentality.

I get a kick out of some of my friends in professional baseball. They like to use words such as “family”, “culture” and “love” to describe their organization. But at the drop of a hat, everyone in that organization can be fired, traded, or waived without even a previous conversation. Does
that sound like loyalty, allegiance, or devotion to you?

Didn’t think so.

That’s management at work.

I totally understand that this is the reality of the business of baseball. I get it. But simply throwing around those lovely words doesn’t then make the culture high functioning. In reality, it’s mostly a story they are telling themselves. (They certainly aren’t convincing me of the efficacy of the fairy tale.)

In truth, I’m appalled by a lot of what I see in recruiting and the turnover in the college game today. I understand mechanistic thinking being part of professional baseball, but college baseball is in many cases just as callous and impersonal. That discussion is for another day and almost certainly a book for parents – I’ll keep you updated on its progress.

For the purpose of this blog post, I wanted to urge you to think leadership, and not management, as often as possible. Leadership is desperately needed. It is rare and precious.

Whatever your station in life, take care of the person to your left and your right. Everyone old enough to read my words can lead.

Manage systems and processes but lead people.

Marcus Luttrell is exactly correct, “There are no bad teams, just bad leaders. We all must make a daily choice. Either we choose to lead our team in growing inside a very chaotic, messy, difficult, and unjust world, or we choose to manage our team in its slow decline and deterioration, hoping beyond hope that superstars in our midst will arise and save us from
ourselves and our atrophy.”

 

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Important TBR Updates

  • Registration is now open for our Fall/Winter Elite Pitcher’s Boot Camps.  We host one camp each month between now and February.   Make plans now as spots are filling up quick! (The November camp is sold out but spots are still available in the other camps.)  Click here to read more and to register.

 

  • Our  fourth annual Elite CATCHERS Boot Camp is scheduled for December 9-11th.   This event is SOLD OUT.  Please call (936)588-6762 or email Jill@TexasBaseballRanch.com to be placed on the waitlist.

 

  • December Coaches Clinic information – Dec. 16 & 17.  Email Jill@TexasBaseballRanch.com to request information.  If you’re ready to register, Click Here.

 

  • Our Alumni Camp will be held January 7&8, 2023.  This camp is only for players who have been to a previous Ranch event.  The $500 Early Bird savings is good until November 15th.  Only 4 spots remain.  Click Here to learn more and to register.  

 

 

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