Business Exposed84
story that makes people want to invest in you, that carries the
day when you need your board’s support (e.g., when making
tough choices on what to divest or invest in), and that helps your
employees see their tasks and decisions in light of the company’s
overall direction. It’s the strength of the story that makes the
CEO.
Managers and leaders: are they different?
Stevie Spring’s story also reminded me of an ancient, famous,
article on leadership in the Harvard Business Review, by Abraham
Zaleznik. Usually, articles about the characteristics of a good
leader or CEO make me feel skeptical, sometimes even nauseous.
It always strikes me, when I look into the history of a company
and analyze its strategic development, that it seems to need top
people with widely different characteristics at different points in
time. There is no one type of leader that everyone should aspire
to.
Take my favourite little British company; the model-train maker
Hornby. When it was in trouble about ten years ago, its board
appointed a tough guy, Peter Newey. He slashed costs, rigorously
made cuts in their portfolio and red a bunch of people. He
wasn’t the most popular guy on the block (he was wise enough
not to live in the company’s home town Margate; he might have
ended up with a knife in his back) but – with hindsight – people
also respected him: he was what the company needed at the
time, and it is doubtful it would have survived without him.
But then Hornby hired a people guy: Frank Martin. The rst
thing employees told me about him was: “he is extremely good
at managing relationships” (something Newey wasn’t exactly
renowned for; and that’s a euphemism). And he was; he built
superb relationships with suppliers, customers, retailers, and
investors. And the company ourished.
Yet, could he have done the tough turnaround job? Doubtful. He
simply has other qualities. He too was the right man for the job
at the time – just like Newey was.
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Gods and villains
You see the same thing at companies over and over again. Take
Apple; in its early days, the energetic and charismatic Steve Jobs
was exactly what the spawning company needed. However,
when down-to-earth CEO John Sculley took over (much to the
chagrin of Jobs), the company had one of its most protable runs
ever; Sculley didn’t innovate, inspire bold new moves, or initiate
great change; he focused on making money, and did that very
well.
And that is what Apple needed at that point in time. Later,
when it needed to be pushed and driven into a new direction,
Sculley could not give it one; it was Jobs’ time again, to inspire,
initiate, and make the company grow. And again he did that
very well. The same happened at the famous Swiss watch-maker
Swatch: Ernest Thomke created the organization that led to the
emergence of the innovative Swatch; subsequent CEO Nicolas
Hayek took the invention and relentlessly managed the organi-
zation into a long streak of dominance and protability. There
is not one type of leader that ts all; different companies, at
different times, need different people.
In the classic Harvard Business Review article “Managers and
leaders: Are they different?” author Abraham Zaleznik’s answer
to this intriguing (and slightly provocative) question was an
unambiguous “yes”. Leaders inspire, are emotional, if not
neurotic, and they are born that way. Managers are very different;
they are rational, balanced, unemotional, and easy to get along
with (although perhaps slightly boring). And it is not that one is
superior to the other; different rms, at different stages of their
development, need someone who inspires and does extraor-
dinary things. But at other times, you need someone rational and
objective, and perhaps slightly boring. Such a person may never
be a “leader”, but he can be a darn good manager.
Sometimes we need to be inspired, take risks, and dream up
wacky things. Sometimes not. Banks come to mind. Sometimes,
there is nothing wrong with a boring banker. Or a boring
politician.
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