Take People to the Threshold of Their Own Greatness

The fact is that most management is still to controlling. We are looking only at the structure above ground. We are taking people to our house of wisdom, not to the threshold of their own greatness. We are looking at goals instead of ideas. With our eyes focused on the structure above the ground, we have lost sight of those human resources, imagination, vision, hope, and faith which make the structure itself possible. Innovative leadership is what strengthens the foundation of any organization.

A leader unconsciously draws people to them by the strength of their leadership style. Management people are in training for almost everything under the sun but the thing they need most - development of their own leadership style. Most managers want to motivate, inspire, and drive change. Too many of them don't know how, and don't realize that they need to improve their leadership style.

Traditional management thinking establishes a huge separation between the management and employees within the organization. This goes against more open communication between managers and employees in a more innovative leadership style. Traditional management thinking generally assumes that fair pay and benefits are the most effective way to motivate employees.

Traditional management thinking conflicts with innovation and creative expression. Traditional management creates a workplace culture where employees are held to strict policies and standards of performance. Managers seldom rely on employees for the creation of strategy, goals, and objectives. Thus, traditional management very rarely fits well in organizations that are attempting to drive change.

Traditional management principles - such as the need for hierarchy - limit innovation. Traditional management thinking puts the focus on supervision, budgets, target dates, individual performance, job duties, and compliance. Innovative leadership is more focused on seeing the whole, group thinking, interdependence, motivation, and driving change. Traditional management practices focus on the internal processes, policies and procedures of an organization rather than people, motivation, and ideas.

The role of the manager in a traditional management model is to evaluate and solve problems, assign tasks to the employees, direct and control performance. Traditional styles of management define their products and services on their own terms. They assume that the products and services they produce have good quality. Within a traditional management model, changing organizational direction as a result of employee input is not seen as a normal practice. Traditional management models focus wholly on management input.

Traditional management keeps the focus mostly on internal activities. Culture is totally and internally defined by management. Products and services are assumed to be good in quality, if the organization has done its best in producing that product or service. But in innovative leadership, focus is on creating ideas as a team. Traditionally management thought poor sales volume was the result of poor employee performance. Innovative leadership understands that all the organization has to be in unity to change culture and the thinking patterns of the organization.

Brad Hanson is an experienced management consultant, master sales and leadership trainer, and a keynote speaker with 50 years of sales and leadership experience.