10-Round Championship Safety/Quality Bout Management vs. Leadership

The beatings will continue until the ____ improves. Plug whatever word you want into that phrase (i.e., morale, quality or safety). What’s your manager’s motivational tool — a cattle prod, a cookie or charm? All of these point to leadership capabilities or lack thereof. I know you have experienced managers who motivate with threats and push to attain production quotas, and oddly enough quality issues and even dumber, safety goals. You have seen the manager who tries to entice you to perform with rewards, incentives, bonuses and pizza. Food works but money works better. Unfortunately, you have probably not seen a charismatic leader because they are very rare and typically only come into the limelight in a negative form such as Adolf Hitler, Jim Jones and David Koresh.

Contrary to popular belief, management and leadership are distinctly different. How many times have you heard this from your manager: “The next supervisor that reports a ladder safety problem will get three days off without pay”; “It’s time for a change — we need consistency”; “Why do we have these recurring safety problems?”; “How come we can’t maintain quality levels?”; “Let’s start Six Sigma, a Lean program or something, we haven’t had a new program in over a month.” That last statement is fictitious whereas the first one is an actual quote from a manager. Regardless, you know that these thought process are taking place. That’s a manager, and managers seek consistency and desire order. They are comfortable in a stable environment that changes in a predictive manner and in utilizing extrinsic motivators (rewards and punishment).

managers

Peter Drucker, the world-famous management expert and author, said, “So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.” Micro-management makes it difficult for people to work hard and management makes work hard for difficult people. The distinction is a matter of perception. Micro-managers do so from a lack of confidence in themselves and in their workers. They will be the first to take credit for success and quick to point fingers to failures. Variations in hours, habits, efficiency and proficiency can greatly affect a management’s goals and attitudes, stretching their capability to restore order creating a cast of characters with pet names such as the parrot, slick Willie, fast Eddie, etc.

It isn’t the front line worker who is the road block to improvement initiatives. The hardest to change is middle management. Middle management achieved success and has seen others achieve success by following a certain path. What incentive would they have to change that proven course? You can’t smell the stench of dysfunction when you are swimming in the dysfunctional pool. Change means they will have to do things differently. If change means you will have a 50 percent probability of improving your promotional status marginally, and if you don’t change because you know the old way works, which path do you think one will choose? Upper management, on the other hand, is usually receptive to change; they are already at the pinnacle and pretty much insulated from risk of upward movement. They will be deemed a genius if the change is successful; if it fails, there are plenty of lower managers to blame by stating that the plans weren’t carried out as directed. Middle management can’t afford to take those risks without jeopardizing their careers.

Cultural change is a team effort. There are two ways for a middle manager to stand out if he or she has to be part of a mass effort. One is to be brilliant, leading the movement by instilling mutual trust in the workers to follow. However, that’s hard and a departure from the managerial mystique; it is much easier to stall any efforts but verbally support upper management’s initiatives, thus giving the impression of total commitment and maintaining that vision with upper management. Front-line workers become the scapegoats and get blamed for failed efforts.

It’s hard for a star to shine bright among other shining stars. That’s too much effort, but a dim star will appear bright if you make the surrounding stars dimmer. This is what is called ‘propagation of culture’ where a supervisor sees that his/her superior was promoted following a certain culture avenue and they will do likewise in turn. The organization sets the tone by promoting those who stand out. The means of standing out is inconsequential and could be through sinking your fellow worker, supporting your fellow worker, socializing with your bosses or socializing in work teams. Regardless, the perception is what will prevail over reality, as perceptive attitude is what forms the climate. If this is the attitude that got that person promoted, it must be what upper management is looking for, so the attitude is emulated, encouraged and maintained by those looking to excel within the company. The social norm is established. If you are the kind of manager who accepts the blame, you are honest and kind of screwed in this environment. Middle management is where you will find the snipers and saboteurs of any new initiative.

leaders

If that’s a manager, then what’s a leader? Without getting too involved in the differences, leaders are characterized by embracing change, thriving in a moving environment, being creative and focused while absorbing information from a wide spectrum, and learning continually. This is kind of the opposite of a manager.

There are essentially two types of leaders: transformational and transactional. Transformational leaders are intrinsically motivated by their passion and followers are motivated by devotion. Transactional leaders are extrinsically motivated by rewards and followers are motivated by compliance. Transformational leaders are commonly referred to as charismatic leaders.

Mwai Kibaki, president of Kenya, said, “Leadership is a privilege to better the lives of others. It is not an opportunity to satisfy personal greed.”

How does this help us change?

You ultimately want to work in a safe environment where high-quality workmanship is desired, but all the rules and regulations and policies can only go so far. Cultural change is needed.

“Where do you buy one of those safety/quality culture thingies?” If you have to ask, you can’t afford it. As a matter of fact, you can’t buy it, install it, build it or make it — and if you get it, you can’t manage it. You can’t touch it, feel it or see it but you can sense when it is there. How elusive can this be? Safety/quality culture has to be created, not mandated; it has to be lead, not managed. “Hey, our guys are creative and if they aren’t, we can get another bunch of idiots who will create what they we tell them to create. We’ve got good leadership and anyone who disagrees will be replaced.” This is not the way to create and it is not leadership.

For any successful change initiative to take hold, there must be buy in from all stakeholders within the organization. This is what all the text books will tell you. On the practical side, you will never get everybody to buy in. You should strive for consensus and buy in from your key movers. The peer drives the culture.

There are three factors involved with change: controls, culture and climate. Controls are the rules and policies you have in place and they represent the ideal situation. Culture is what is going on in the organization and represents reality. Climate is what everyone’s perception is of the organization and represents the emotion. You can apply this to almost every situation. In order to adopt a safety/quality culture, you first have to determine where your culture is and where you want it to go. This is a gap analysis. Once you know the gap, you have to understand that culture and climate affect each other. Controls are easy to change and management is good in this function, but climate and culture are the hearts and minds of your workforce. These require leadership, not management.

You don’t push people to change — you have to lead them through change. Leadership requires mutual trust; workers won’t follow who they don’t trust, at least for any length of time. Remember Abe Lincoln’s saying, “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time.”

Leadership cannot flourish unless it is in a psychologically-healthy environment. Workers define the environment that surrounds them and align themselves to that environment. There are groups within groups; some are tightly-formed friendships while others are loosely-connected work relationships. Once aligned, the group defines the environment above them and determines if the upper level environment is aligned. Even if it is not fully aligned, the group will align with the group above if it is predominantly advantageous. If it isn’t aligned and there is no perceived advantage or trust, they will either deal with the disparity or rebel. The three paths the workers can follow are: cooperation (fully engaged), complacency (neutral), or retaliation (fully disengaged).

One primary characteristic that must be established for a sustaining safety/quality culture, and which is probably the biggest stumbling block, is the trust factor. A disadvantage when uncorking the trust factor is there will, more than likely, be an increase in safety and quality reports. Establishment of trust removes the issues that previously suppressed reporting for fear of retaliation.

I have identified some of the obstacles to affecting change. You can’t just take two culture pills and see me in the morning. Change is personal within an organization. It has to be customized, with divisions within the organization and groups within the division all having their own climate and culture requiring a tailored change.

Managers strive for consistency; leaders thrive in change. You don’t change people; you change the situations.

Managers and leaders have their function and place. Both are required for successful organizational excellence; leaders promote the change and managers sustain the gain.

Patrick Kinane joined the Air Force after high school and has worked in aviation since 1964. Kinane is a certified A&P with IA and holds an FAA license and commercial pilot certificate with instrument rating. He earned a bachelor of science degree in aviation maintenance management, MBA in quantitative methods, master of science degree in education and Ph.D. in organizational psychology. He has been involved with 121 carriers and held positions from aircraft mechanic to director of maintenance. Kinane currently works as senior quality systems auditor for AAR Corp. and adjunct professor for DeVry University instructing in organizational behavior, total quality management (TQM) and critical thinking. PlaneQA is his consulting company that specializes in quality and safety system audits and training. Speaking engagements are available with subjects in critical thinking, quality systems and organizational behavior. For more information, visit www.PlaneQA.com.