Frankenstein’s Manager: Leadership’s Missing Links

Citation

Rausch, E. (2003), "Frankenstein’s Manager: Leadership’s Missing Links", Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 24 No. 5, pp. 302-303. https://doi.org/10.1108/lodj.2003.24.5.302.1

The good news is simple. I really enjoyed reading this small, well‐written book, full of good ideas and many challenging thoughts. It is one that will be worth any manager’s time to review leisurely.

The author’s basic premise is as sound as it can possibly be – highly effective leaders are real people, not Frankenstein’s managers who, like their namesake are made up of combinations of mismatched parts. They are neither born nor are they created from piecemeal training programmes. They emerge from continuing, ongoing, self‐development, even if they start with innate talent for the complex job.

The book is divided into three parts. In Part 1 McAneny discusses 20 myths of training, including – “Training is the solution” myth, “Better conditions create a happy workforce” myth, “Positive stroking” myth and “Charismatic leader” myth. In Part 2 he describes 360 Degree assessment and provides an evaluation form which readers can fill in on themselves, and also ask others to complete for them. Part 3 discusses what the author considers “Leadership’s missing links”, which can help a manager become a better leader. These include “links to yourself, to other managers, to your boss and to your people”.

Most of the time I found myself nodding – yes, even in the descriptions of the “myths”. But then I also sometimes began to wonder whether a point was overstated or possibly in partial conflict with statements elsewhere. In fact, I found that there were quite a few places where the author seems to have exaggerated or where I thought that I could successfully defend another position. But, then, that is true of almost all leadership books. It may be that McAneny, deliberately or not fully intentionally, assumed a devil’s advocate position to challenge the reader.

To his credit, the author has tackled many controversial issues, especially in Part 1 of the book. Some of these come back to haunt him in Part 3. One example is when he derides communications programmes in “The communications skills myth” and then covers specific communications skills such as listening, interactions, and the use of open questions within “Missing links”. The problem seems to be that in the “myth” section he is speaking of the impact of one‐time training programmes, while in the section on “links” he points to skills or behaviours in which managers have to strive to become proficient if they wish to be effective leaders. One wonders whether there was unnecessary and even somewhat confusing drama in the way this distinction was presented.

It’s that kind of implied exaggeration of a point that could develop a credibility gap with knowledgeable readers. A few, almost incredibly extreme, descriptions of excellent leaders reinforce these doubts. Usually there is, however, a sound redeeming point in the author’s conclusions which rescues the characters in these anecdotes.

Still, McAneny fails to distinguish clearly between “training” in the form of training programmes and continuing training based on ongoing guidance on what to learn and how to learn it. In fact it may be the most serious weakness of the book when it fails to point to the need for a framework, or a “roadmap” to the development of higher levels of leadership performance. It hints at, but never spells out, a concern for the need for structure in learning – a conceptual skeleton to tie together all the issues that implicitly or explicitly are (or should be) considered by effective managers/leaders in their decisions. It seems obvious that one cannot develop oneself effectively without knowing what the topics are in which development can or should be considered.

On the positive side is the suggestion that organizations might benefit from emphasizing “personal responsibility” instead of “empowerment”, which McAneny endorses while pointing to its many pitfalls. Even more important to appreciation of the book is the underlying focus on the need for leaders to gain a clear, objective view of their own behaviours and to develop close business relations with the people all around them. To assist readers with this challenge, and at the same time to provide a framework such as the one mentioned above, is the detailed 360 Degree assessment questionnaire in Part 2 that readers can use. It brings a fairly practical tool that can be of significant help in evaluating personal behaviours and enhancing relationships.

There is a segment in the chapter on forging links which touches on the controversy involving leadership versus management. Unfortunately it does not tackle the issues head‐on. The author hints at being in favour of the position I consider most defensible – that managers must be leaders if they want to be effective, not only efficient – that they must do the right things, not only do things right. Still, he also seems to take the other side when he makes a sharp distinction in his question: ’When do you manage, when do you lead?’ Here he is in slight contradiction to the thread that runs throughout Part 3 on links, namely that leadership is involved in one way or another, in everything that managers do.

All that said, I have to repeat that the book is one that I believe every manager should read, and read with careful attention to the author’s many useful messages. It certainly will be beneficial to complete the questionnaire and to look objectively at what it reveals.