Organisational Leadership Lessons – Leadership Pyramid

A manager gets the work done but a Leader inspires people who follow him or
her to do the required work. While the former is more of a regulatory and
hierarchical dynamics, the latter is independent of any span of control. Hence
the leader gets followers while a manager has subordinates. So how does one
transition from being a manager to a leader? In an organisation people become
managers, HoDs and CXOs being promoted after they do a good or an acceptable
job in their previous role. But do these promoted (or for that matter managers
brought from outside the organisation) become good leaders? Leaders are
different breed. Its not that Leadership cannot be attained but it is about making
a transition from being a Manager to a Leader and believe me the true test of
an Organisation’s Leader is not when the going is good but really when the going
gets tough! In this context I have a concept called Leadership Pyramid which
essentially shows the transit from a Manager to a Leader in nutshell. This
Leadership Pyramid essentially is about What, How and Why.

~11% WHY

here
~23%
HOW

WHAT

~66%
LEADERSHIP PYRAMID

The biggest set of people are essentially what I call the “What” people. They are
the Managers and they remain at that level failing to make the transition. This
is the largest set of people. In the pyramid they constitute about two-third or
more of the managers/HoDs/CXOs whatever their designations may be. They
form the bulk of the people in the various organisations irrespective of levels
and that is why there is really dearth of good leaders. I call them “What People”
because they are conditioned to lead people by telling them ‘What’ to do, i.e.,
what work/activities are to be done, goals to be achieved, targets to be reached.
Its more transactional in nature.
The next set of people are those who have graduated between simple Managers
and high-quality Leaders. They are what I call as the ‘How’ people. Essentially,
they are people who have moved beyond being simple Managers and maybe
transitioning to be great Leaders. Some may achieve it, while a lot of them stay
there not realising what is required to move to the next level. They probably
constitute about two-third of the remaining one-third, i.e. about 23% for the
entire population of Managers. The ability of these are not only to instruct what
is to be done but also be able to effectively communicate how its is to be done.
Here I must add that I am not talking about simple instructions to the people
(whom they lead) on the steps to done in doing a work, but its more about a way
of thinking/analysing/process on doing a particular task or achieving a Goal. In
one sense they become like mentors for the people who follow them.
The remaining 10-11% (or probably less) who go on to become good Leaders in
their organisation /community are the people who are the ‘Why’ people. They
show their followers “Why” a work is to be done, why a goal is to be achieved.
They show the Vision for future and therefore ‘Why’ the work has to be done,
‘Why’ a goal is to be achieved and what are the goals which become milestones
in achieving the ultimate Vision of the Organisation. They explain and
communicate the Vision and its Meaning (refer my previous article L:VMR) to
their people or shall I say their followers.

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