Manager versus Leader

Decidedly, the 3 most powerful words in the Leadership lexicon are : Openness, Inclusion and Control.
At most Leadership Workshops, when participants are asked to list the most desired qualities of their leaders, they invariably come up with synonyms of the above. The 3words are like a ‘mantra’ – everybody knows them and relates to them in some form or the other but very rarely do most people have a handle on it and so the words become a series of watch words to be recited as often as possible.
Let’s deal with ‘Openness.’ Some call it transparency. It is the quality of a manager who is unfraid to share information, feedback and other relevant data on an ‘as is, what is basis’ without embellishments with his teammates, especially in areas that directly concern them. Most often, to my mind the reason why a manager does not share is not because he is afraid to share, but more because he is on an ego trip – a kind of ‘one – up man ship’ because the manager believes that the information he has been passed on is by virtue of his designation and ‘power’ in the organization and therefore to be used sparingly and covertly with his team. The practice harks back to the hoary traditions of the now long dead concept of Personnel Management, which thrived and maintained it’s stranglehold on organizational thought processes by over usage of the dreaded word ‘Confidential.’
In organizations still trapped in this mindset or where managers are still prisoners of this mindset, managers dole out selective dollops of information heavily laced with the spin of the moment. It is a mere power game and is meant to emphasize the so – called supremacy of the ‘Boss’. The subordinate, who often times is more canny and intimately co habits with the office grape vine, waits and responds in the only manner he knows to respond – by withholding information in his control. At every level of such dysfunctional organizations therefore is nurtured a cesspool of distorted truths and rumour- spinning ‘news bits.’ The real truth is often choked in various gullets and metaphorically the insides of such an organization could resemble the ‘ruminant stomach’ of a cow, with varied processes on at the ends and a churning process in the vulnerable middle.