Crushed between the Letter and the Spirit ?

Professional nomads like me, have found utterance for our way of life, in the formal discourse around the gig economy.

The years of hopping and working around with organisations and teams have brought a unique opportunity to gain some understanding of the various leadership and managerial styles.

Visibly, the underlying differentiator between managers and the leaders has turned out to be, the amount of focus they invest in the Letter and the Spirit of things.

The managers are busy people, who seem to have a deep faith in following the literal aspects of things; and are busy making sure that the everyone is dotting their i’s and crossing their t’s. People who in Hindustani are called ‘Lakeer ke Faqeer’ - conformity is what they seek and are driven by.

Leaders on the other hand are people who understand the importance of conformity, but are comfortable with the non-conformities and are quick to see the opportunity to push the envelope these may contain, and even pursue non-conformity for a larger purpose.

In an automotive analogy, the managers are busy aligning wheels and balancing them and may often forget to turn the ignition and change the gear; and may even have the handbrakes on, pursuing added safety. Often they end up running harder but stay in the same place or are just happy driving the car faster.

The leader on the other hand understands that it is great to drive a fast car, but only if you have a compass and know where to go. Else, you might end up going in the wrong direction, faster.

The Leaders are guided by the spirit of their mission, more than the letter of it.

The Table in the picture looks at some of the signature characteristics of the two archetypes.

In recent years I have had the opportunity to work with large sized organisations that work at massive interventions; but have been dismayed by how they are endemically structured to drive people towards conformity and transactional mindsets. Imaginations die at the altar of what is already known and cherished, rigid templates of thought and lots of theorising, that prevents ideas and programs from taking flight.

Great talent stuck in soul crushing amounts of routine, industrial age presentations, meetings, reporting requirements; that leaves only about 30% time and almost no mindspace for real action or creative thought. Thus leading to under achievement, at great cost.

All thud and blunder !

The exceptions both in terms of organisations and leaders are all too few.

#leadership #management #education #workplace #culture #organisation #digital #health #emotionalhealth #mentalhealth