Management Counsel Newsletter: Issue 2
Managerial Mystique

Abraham Zaleznik's 1989 book "The Managerial Mystique" describes the managerial mystique as a belief that one can and should separate the mind and heart, logic and common sense -- and that success comes from a reliance on process, structures, roles and indirect forms of communication. Managers learn to ignore ideas, people, emotions, and direct talk.

The result: a leadership gap. "[Professional Managers] brought what they learned from the business schools, namely, principles of bargaining, emotional control, human relations skills and the technology of quantitative control. They left behind commitment, creativity, concern for others, and experimentation. They learned to be managers instead of leaders."

Zaleznik sees managers as missing opportunity or taking inappropriate actions. Examples are given that support his view.

The solution? "Leaders must be able to contribute to the substantive thinking [and imagination] necessary to move a business beyond problems and into opportunities."

"Leadership in business goes beyond encouraging and guiding other people to seek solutions to problems."

Imagination uses experience and analogy to search for solutions using conceptual thinking, leading to identifying opportunities that can be aggressively sought, or that can be patiently tended until the right time to act arrives.

Revitalizing leadership will not mean the end of a team based or empowered organization. The leader who is "... confident of their own imaginative capacity will recognize, respect, and draw on the talents of other people."

Managers and management skills are not to be replaced. They must be supplemented by leadership: to generate new ideas; to set directions; to take responsibility.

Organizations will always need processes such as the planning process described elsewhere in this newsletter. But, we need to learn that this is not enough.

We need leaders. We need imagination. We need direction. And we cannot expect this to emerge solely by relying on good processes and a sense of team work. We need leaders too.