Leadership and the Tao

I try to start my day with a reading from Lao Tzu.He remains the wisest teacher about organizations and leadership. The commentary from the R.L. Wing translation is always rich with aha’s. I found this morning’s selection especially strong and want to share it.

“Lao Tzu advises leaders to move toward simplicity and away from complexity—toward universality rather than differentiation. As always, he urges leaders to learn when to stop and practice noninterference. Leaders who insist on exacting systems and roles in their organizations cannot create a natural, effortless atmosphere for the completion of tasks, because the structure they conceive of is suited for machines, not humans.

When people are force into roles and every aspect of their work is defined, their possibilities become limited, they no longer create, and they do not evolve. When leaders systematize every detail in their organization, they close it off from the possibility of evolution. Just as life forms that are highly specialized move in the direction of extinction, this path leads to the extinction of the organization.

On the other hand, with open-ended management the people have nothing to resist or resent. They become spontaneously cooperative because their attention shifts to the end rather than the means.”

Filed under: leadership, Management, Taoism

Gender Asbestos

As Kellye Whitney points out in her post in Diversity Executive , there has been far too much focus on the problems of developing women leaders and not nearly enough on the opportunities, the potential upside. Kellye is picking up on the big debate started by Avivah Cox in her recent response to the Harvard Business Review’s negative stream of articles on the subject. Avivah has really gotten things going here!

Filed under: Featured, Management, Workplace and Business Trends, Add new tag, Business, Education, Harvard Business Review, Harvard University

I’m Sorry ‘Shumpeter’

Last week, the Economist’s featured a cover story: We Did It! What Happens When Women Are Over Half the Workforce.  It provided a good summary picture of where women stand in 2010 and suggested that we celebrate women’s progress—to which I can only say, good idea!

The magazine’s “Schumpeter” column, which is supposed to focus on entrepreneurship and innovation, took a rather contrary approach. The column is anonymously written, but named in honor of the great Austrian  economist who coined the phrase “creative destruction.”

“Schumpeter” used the occasion to pen a retrograde rant against anyone who suggests that one half of the human race might bring a slightly different set of skills, values and insights with them into the world of business or government.

Identifying the first generation of female leaders as a tough bunch who bore a sneering disdain for “the sisters,” he lamented twenty years of pioneering research on the qualities women bring to leadership. He singled out the wonderful work Avivah Wittenberg-Cox and Judy Rosener, and even took a swipe at McKinsey for its ground-breaking work on leadership behaviors.

Perhaps most bizarrely, he advocated that women follow the lead of one Dong Mingzhu, the boss of an air-conditioning company. She wins his heart by proudly proclaiming, “I never admit mistakes and I am always correct.”

The column seemed particularly out of whack because “Schumpeter” allegedly celebrates the entrepreneurial spirit. I suggest whoever writes it read Margaret Heffernan’s magnificent How She Does It, the best thing ever written about what female entrepreneurs bring to the game, in terms of values, skills and profitability.

Filed under: Featured, Management, Women Entrepreneurs, Women in the Workplace, Womens Leadership, Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, Margaret Heffernan, The Economost, Womens Leadership