Culture Hacker

13LeadershipWhy We Have So Many Managers but So Few Leaders

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader.

John Quincy Adams, U.S. President¹

Managers more than any other cultural mechanism, influence how employees feel about coming to work and what they do. When managers are able to inspire their employees to perform at a higher level, to stay longer, and to take care of their customers better, they exhibit leadership—our final cultural mechanism.

You could argue, and I would agree, that everything we have discussed so far is about leadership. After all, I believe great managers focus on how to deliver results through maximizing the talents, abilities, and strengths of their people. They do this by employing, leveraging, and focusing in on many of the mechanisms we have discussed, such as hiring the right people, onboarding them, enabling and empowering their performance, recognizing results, having tough conversations, communicating effectively, and focusing on career development.

While other chapters in this book have discussed a number of things managers can do to positively influence employees' attitudes and mindsets or be better leaders, this chapter reminds all managers how they inspire their people not by what they do, but by who they are. Although any manager can utilize and leverage the mechanisms described in this book, I believe that leaders have a little something more that makes others want to work hard and ...