Comments

Do we have to choose between leadership and expertise? Even if you don't get both in the same person, you'd damn well better have both in the organization. And the two better talk to each other. One without the other doesn't do much good.

Posted by Michael Martine at July 6, 2005 7:48 PM

Michael Martine has a good point. Leadership and expertise are not mutually exclusive. Additionally, there is quite a difference between promoting or hiring leadership over expertise in a corporate environment and a foreign war zone where young men and women's lives are at stake.

Debating whether current FBI officials are actually performing as leaders is exactly what we should be doing. In my mind, integrity tops the list of most important leadership qualities.

Please, give me a reason to believe the FBI is acting with integrity.

How many young men and women have died in Iraq due to our leadership's lack of understanding of Middle Eastern culture? How many tax dollars have been spent and respent?

I have supported the war in Iraq from the onset. Admittedly, this support is bolstered more by hope and faith than facts. Similarly, I am not knowledgable about the military or FBI, so I keep my opinions to myself, but seems rather absurd to me.

Posted by Troy Worman at July 6, 2005 9:33 PM

Given a choice between a leader or an expert/technician, I would want to have the LEADER in charge.

Good leaders know how to choose and use effective technicians.

Posted by Erick Blackwelder at July 6, 2005 11:40 PM

I agree with Michael and Erick. While a good leader doesnt necessarily need total expertise, they better know how to identfy, recruit, inspire, communicate with, and understand those that do.

Otherwise, they will do a great job of rallying the troops in the wrong direction. Another question: do good leaders really lead the experts? Or is their job to back them up, focus them, encourage them to innovate, and support them when they do....?

...

Posted by AJ Hoge at July 7, 2005 12:17 AM

I believe that Michael is right. But I beg to differ in part with the others.

Leadership skills can be acquired more easily than subject matter skills (through mentoring, job rotation, promotions to positions of increased responsibility and other time honoured methods)

Subject matter skills can only be acquired by training, education and work experience. This takes many many years.

In a situation where you need to promote a leader, perhaps we could see two situations:

A) Where effective strategy depends on specific knowledge (e.g. early adopter tech companies)
Promote the subject matter expert. Here the subject matter expert worries about strategy, about industry issues and long term programs of the company or organisation. He or she then delegates the execution of them to the leader, who inspires those around him to rise to the challenge and achieve.

B) Where effective strategy depends on execution skills (e.g. commercial functions)
Promote the leader. The leader needs to gain the trust of the subject matter expert, and get him to contribute along with other people to execute a part of the strategy. The leader also gets experts in other areas to help execute the other parts of the strategy.

The underlying assumption is that the leader is good at execution while the subject matter guru is not. If this is not the case - the subject matter guru is also good at execution - promote him/her every time!

What do you think Cathy?

Posted by Arun Sadhashivan at July 7, 2005 12:39 AM

Good old question this one. Leaders don't need expertise in order to lead, if they are true leaders then they have the ability to put together the necesary expertise to achieve their vision, by focusing on human potential.

Posted by Omara at July 7, 2005 12:50 AM

I prefer to look at this old dilemma as the difference between 'leadership' and 'management'

I recognise a clear differnce and have published an article 'Leadership and Management - Chalk and Chese' - http://www.rattle-the-cage.com/rtc/Articles/chalkandcheese.html

It would be great to have some feedback

Posted by Trevor Gay at July 7, 2005 2:55 AM

It's easy to have a nice intellectual discussion about this. But look at it from the viewpoint of those at the receiving end in Iraq. Let's say I'm a superpower, and you're a third world country ruled by George Bush, who I think is an evil dictator. I decide I'm going to get rid of him - I'm going to bomb the hell out of your country (oops...maybe kill some of your children and friends in the process). I will turn your country into a battlefield for an indefinite period, but I've decided that's the price you're going to pay for freedom.

Would you rather that I have some knowledge of your culture and customs, your values, your hopes, your dreams, your worries... so I can make sure I'm treating you resepectfully on your terms, or would you rather that I was a "leader" with no knowledge of your culture, just doing leadership stuff, whatever that is?

Culture is about people. If a leader thinks he doesn't need to have expertise in local culture, he's seriously deficient in the brain department. I hate to be the one to tell you, but America is despised in many parts of the world precisely because of this attitude - that you don't need to care about anyone else's culture before you go around inflicting collateral damage (ie killing and insulting lots of innocents without worrying about it too much). On a global level, America has appointed itself as leader, with little knowledge of local cultures. The results haven't been pleasant.

It's like forcing yourself on a woman you won't bother to get to know, saying that's it's leadership and it's all for her own good anyway.

Posted by Chetan Dhruve at July 7, 2005 4:12 AM

I think it depends on the situation.

Somtimes you have to hire a hands-on type of leader. These persons have to bee good at the tecnically side of what they are doing. There can be many reasons for this, but for exsample somtimes you need a leader in a job-area that just dont qualify for both a leader and a tecnician.

Other times you need a LEADER. Then I would not be the least bit scared to hire a person with great leader skills and no skills in the area of work. As long as this person have some great people to lead, then everything will work out just fine :)

Its just important to remember that just because someone is a great player, it dosent nessesarely make him a great coach.

Posted by Klok at July 7, 2005 4:34 AM

SME skills like mid-east termination of terrorists can be learned in a short time. Virtual life and death and cutting money supplies are free world areas of expertise. Rad Muslim killing rad Muslim is what we have mainly now - perfect.

Top level eadership and management professionalism are extremely rare - just look at the average $100M packages that CEO's receive - and/or Beckham's salary/endorsements and other celebrities/sports people who lead the way in their pro endeavors.

Celeb high-paid accountants/auditors/snipers - NOT/NYET/Nada.

Posted by Sean at July 7, 2005 5:11 AM

I humbly disagree with Arun. Leaders are very rare. Most companies root them out because they are different and want change. Expertise however, is common to an organisation, has a set design and does not threaten management.

Posted by Steve Robert at July 7, 2005 6:47 AM

A great leader who listens to the topic experts must be the choice (that is, after all the expertise of a leader.) One of their best attributes is the ability to shut up and get out of the way when their 'contribution' isn't needed. A fantastic example of this would be the GE work-out programme, that was initiated from the top, but mostly led/decided on by much lower management.

Then you have the seat-of-the-pants leaders that have God on their side, and don't need topic experts (or the facts, for that matter.) This type of leader is never too successful in the military or in business, but can do very well in politics, apparently.

Posted by Dave at July 7, 2005 6:53 AM

Looking at the winning London 2012 bid, that was a triumph of leadership over management from Seb Coe. There was vision, risks, and above all a real story. Barbera Cassani, who he took over from as bid chair, was/is a fantastic manager but the leadership that Coe provided was special.

Coe himself was not the only leader. The London bid was a leader.

At a city level, the contenders for the Games were all technically proficient, but this was only the entry level. London had a story which took technical excellence as the starting point and told a story which hardly mentioned it. It was all about opportunity, young people and chances. And that paid off.

The noise now coming out of Paris sounds like they didn't get the story thing and thought that being technically excellent was all that matters. London won on the emotional level.

Posted by Nathan at July 7, 2005 7:53 AM

Sean says "and other celebrities/sports people who lead the way in their pro endeavors," then "Celeb high-paid accountants/auditors/snipers - NOT/NYET/Nada."

I'd say that most "celebrities/sports people" are SME's at best, definitely not leaders. For the very few leaders that exist in American movies/tv/pro sports there are many many more who just have skills but no leadership abilities. They are "celeb high-paid snipers" who use a baseball or script rather than a bullet.

Posted by steven at July 7, 2005 8:54 AM

The blind leading the blind is what comes to mind here. You must understand the enemy to win. Leadership implies understanding of where you are going. To assume that leadership without subject matter expertise is foolish and is the reason that the mess keeps getting nastier.

Posted by Gary Fox at July 7, 2005 10:24 AM

I echo some of the earlier thoughts that in such key positions as those at the FBI we had better find individuals that have both leadership ability and expertise.

As usual this type of debate has a critical semantics element:
If leadership is simply defined as the ability to move people in a certain direction
and
if you substitute "judgement" for "expertise" while defining judgement as the ability to select the appropriate direction based on available expertise (including enough of your own to detect BS)
then
we had damn well better have top organizational positions filled with individuals with both judgement and leadership.

As Trevor said integrity is a must for leaders.

Imagine the mess that can be created based on the above definition of leadership if the leader lacks judgement. Actually you don't need to imagine - we've seen way to many real life examples recently.

Posted by Preston at July 7, 2005 11:14 AM

Arun said
"Leadership skills can be acquired more easily than subject matter skills (through mentoring, job rotation, promotions to positions of increased responsibility and other time honoured methods)

Subject matter skills can only be acquired by training, education and work experience. This takes many many years."

Huh?

Mentoring - isn't that a form of training and education?

Job rotation/promotions/increased responsibility - isn't that the same as work experience?

Leadership AND subject matter expertise can both take many, many years. I'd rather have an SME working for a leader than vice-versa. If he's a true leader, then he will heed the advice of SME's who are INVALUABLE. Conversely, if you place an SME (lacking leadership skills) in charge of a leader you have a recipe for micro-management, poor delegation, and ineffectiveness.

Posted by Dustin at July 7, 2005 2:59 PM

Interesting comments to O'Leary's blog but I object to the simplistic way the issue has been presented. Of course we want a "leader" over a "techie" but how often is management left with no clue as to how an individual will perform in a leadership sense? If we have worked with or around an individual for any time, we have our judgements at some level about how he or she would perform. Big organizations invest a ton of money and time in training. How often is someone not new to an organizaton simply a blank piece of paper?

Recall the German General Staff model. Summarized, it hypothesized that there were four types of "leaders" (military officers):
1. Bright and energetic
2. Stupid and lazy
3. Bright and lazy
4. Stupid and energetic

The first type you designated as field commanders; the second you kept an eye on them but they are unlikely to do very much harm; the third you made into staff officers and the fourth you kept a very close eye on as they would constantly get you into trouble.

Don't we all operate with a mental model somewhat like the old German general staff? As much as the mathmeticians try to reduce everything to a series of numbers, leaders must rely substantially on judgement. Don't we intuitively gravitate toward those who are leaders? I'd be interested in discussing those more or less observable traits that leaders consistently demonstrate so as to make the identification process a bit more predictable.

Posted by Ed Terry at July 7, 2005 3:56 PM

You have to have both. You can't promote a natural leader who doens't have the knowledge. While knowledge can be acquired it must be acquired before the promotions.

Everyone can learn to lead and everyone can become subject matter experts. Neither is easy.

Like others have said you must have both. They have to work together.

The most important part of the "team" isn't the leader or the sme it is the fact that they all work together.

the leader can't dictate and the sme can't insist. Everyone has to learn to play the game and that is what will make the team work.

And don't you promote the person right for the "team"?

Posted by Rob Sutherland at July 7, 2005 4:14 PM

SME skills = something to absorb on the weekends - $75K/year for briefings

Leadership/Management Talent: top CEO's = $100M packages

Kill terrorists' crusade = priceless

Posted by Sean at July 7, 2005 5:42 PM

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Posted by Noel Guinane at July 7, 2005 6:16 PM

I find Sean's version of the tv advert curious.

I'll say:

SME skills = something to be absort on the w/e = follower, who doesn't see the big picture. - Useful, expertise.

Leadership/Management Talent: top CEO's = Vision and attitude/aptitude for coordinating it throug people. - Important, talent.

Kill terrorist crusade = MISION and Passion, unfortunatelly misunderstood, misinterpreted. Essencial.

Could it be all a question of communication?...

Posted by omara at July 7, 2005 8:58 PM

Leadership implies foresight, which requires intuition. Without expertise, just exactly what is a leader's intuition to be based upon??

Posted by Jason Kerr at July 7, 2005 9:28 PM

Jason - I like the intuition part - I tend to call it "instincts" - which is like Dan Pink's themes on using the entire mindset - accent in certain Pink areas.

Omara - agree on the big picture need - example: 3 million muslims in the USA - 50% in prison as black conversions to islam. 20 million in Europe - adverse assimilation to culture according to recent "analysts". Noel - Trevor and our UK friends - praying for our London innocents/heroes - rejoicing as the crusade continues to kill terror/terrorists ... 30 EU attacks have been aborted since 9/11 - success there ... create more Gitmos to protect freedoms.

Posted by Sean at July 8, 2005 4:24 AM

Leadership and expertise are not mutually exclusive but how the heck can a leader of any kind of large organisation ever be expected to have expertise in all areas? It simply isn't going to happen and your proper expectation should be that the leader has built and holds accountable a team which has the right people with the right areas of expertise the organisation needs.

Regarding counter-terrorism and the FBI, I'd make one other point. Today, the obvious threat might come from the Middle East. But do you want someone or an organisation which is so focused on this one issue that it ignores all other terrorists threats, be they domestic or from other parts of the world?

Also, why would you put someone into a leadership position and then expect him to spend all his time on tasks that require his functional expertise? It'll make the other parts of the organisation feel unappreciated and unloved; it'll make people he's working with feel they're being micro-managed; and it'll detract from his leadership duties.

There are times when a leader has to roll up his sleeves and get stuck in. But you put people into leadership positions to lead and it's their ability to do this that counts.

(By the way, it strikes me reading the article that the real issue is the FBI generally lacks people with counter-terrorism and Middle East skills. Fretting about the leadership choice seems to me to be ignoring the real issue.)

Posted by Mark JF at July 8, 2005 6:05 AM

Expertise shouldn't be confused with knowledge. Knowledge is all too easily gained. Expertise is gained through experience and application of knowledge. More expertise is gained through failure than through success, which means that most organization don't even really have true expertise available to them, because failure is punished.

Posted by Michael Martine at July 8, 2005 12:17 PM

For what it's worth, I'd like to toss in one of my favorite quotes:

"Leadership is like the abominable snowman; his footprints are everywhere but he is nowhere to be seen."

I don't think you can train for or inculcate genuine leadership. It's either something you have or you don't have. A lot of it is gut instinct. What I have noticed is that good leaders surround themselves with competent people who can do things they can't and they give them credit for it. The leader has the vision. He or she can look over the hill and see the path that has to be taken. The 'functional expertise' delivers it with the resouces they are assigned. So if it's a choice between choosing a leader with expertise or a leader without, I don't care too much since if I'm dealing with a genuine leader, I understand he or she will build a team around themselves that has the necessary expertise. It's nice if they have some familiarity with the subject, but it's not a prerequisite for them to be 'expert'.

That said, I think what Mark says about ignoring the real issue is right.

Posted by Noel Guinane at July 8, 2005 12:20 PM

Mark, at least one person in the FBI THINKS he has the requisite counter-terrorism & Middle East skills—thus his lawsuit against the bureau. But you may have a point. Taking into account Michael’s response, there may be a lack of true expertise/experience/ understanding of counter-terrorism & the Middle East in the FBI. OR the issue may be that the FBI simply doesn’t have people with both counter-terrorism/Middle East expertise AND leadership ability—to which the appropriate response is “How come?”

Interesting comments about leadership. Trevor, I enjoyed your chalk & cheese article, especially where you mention that leaders excel at the “soft stuff” and managers at the “hard stuff.” http://www.rattle-the-cage.com/rtc/Articles/chalkandcheese.html (I might add that in the “leader vs. manager” literature of the last 4 decades—which has consumed many a Canadian forest—I wonder if the challenge of being a first-rate manager, by comparison, has been given short shrift.)

Posted by John O'Leary at July 9, 2005 1:09 PM

Leadership? Does the government have the expertise to recognize what that looks like? Here is their definition of leadership: "The ability to make extremely costly decisions that not only fail utterly in obtaining their stated objective but produce the opposite result. Remain blind to this obvious fact. Make consistently upbeat statements to the public covering up mistakes and claiming victory is around the corner." By this definition Ken Lay is a superior leader. Actually, Ken Lay HAD subject matter expertise. Unfortunately our leaders at the FBI do not have that nor do they have what most people would call true leadership: the ability to see what is happeningon the ground and call the game.

Posted by Bob Niederman at July 10, 2005 6:14 AM

Hi Preston - yes integrity is the most important quality of any leader. Look at Tony Blair this past week for a classic study of integrity.

Thank John for the comments about the article - much appreciated. I like to see life simply and my impression over many years is that leaders do 'sweat the small stuff' as well as keep on top of the big picture.

I would share with you a wonderful story of Sir Alex Ferguson - Manager of Manchester United Football Club and world famous sporting Icon for the last 15 years. Sir Alex personally wrote to me congratulating me on the article - the man had no reason to do this. I am pretty insignificant in his mega celebrity busy life but he took the time and trouble to write personally to me and offer some encouragement as well as personal observations about leadership and management.

That to me makes him stand out as an outstanding leader - he is still grounded in reality and is not too big to talk to ordinary folks.

Posted by Trevor Gay at July 10, 2005 6:14 PM

This discussion reminds me of Ibn Gabirol's quote from "Fools and Foolishness":

There are four types of men in this world: 1. The man who knows, and knows that he knows; he is wise, so consult him. 2. The man who knows, but doesn't know that he knows; help him not forget what he knows. 3. The man who knows not, and knows that he knows not; teach him. 4. Finally, there is the man who knows not but pretends that he knows; he is a fool, so avoid him.

- Gabirol, Ibn

Many leaders in the world today have a confidence that persuades others to believe that he knows, when he doesn't. We must remember that leadership is largely about perception, and if people perceive someone to be a leader, than they will follow. The question is, where will they be led?

Unfortunately, many SMEs lack the confidence to speak up for what they know is true, while many leaders relish in speaking up about things that they do not know.

Posted by Tom O'Leary at July 14, 2005 5:14 AM