Warren Bennis’ article entitled Some Truths About Leadership is like a Mirror of Truth. During the process of reading it, bits and pieces of events happened and existed in the Department of Agriculture, Regional Field Unit Number 5, flashed in my mind. His discovery which he calls Bennis’s First Law of Academic Pseudodynamics which states that routine work drives out nonroutine work and smothers all creative planning, all fundamental change in the university or any institution, is evidently occurring in every corner and office of the DA RFU 5 from the Unit Chiefs, Section Chiefs, Division Chiefs, Assistant Directors up to the Regional Executive Director.
My boss who serves as the Regional High Value Crops Development Program (HVCDP) Coordinator and sometimes act as Officer-In-Charge of the Operations Division in the absence of the Division Chief, would often complain that she cannot think clearly on how to fine tune implementation of HVCDP programs, draft strategies, conceptualize new ideas, coordinate and consult with key stakeholders due to the paper works which ties her to her desk and inquiring clients which consumes most of her time. She has to recommend, approve or make recommendation for every letter request, vouchers for job orders and input supplies, memorandum of agreements for various projects and many others. On top of that, she has to attend one meeting to another, consultations, dialogue, workshop, bidding, training and orientation with LGU and other partners. These entire routinary tasks consume her, until she is dead tired and weak to inject new ideas.
Leaders must be conceptualist, Bennis says, which I totally agree. I imagine myriad great ideas that probably floating in our Regional Executive Director’s mind but in the end he cannot have much flexibility because of political and upper management pressure. He might have fresh ideas on implementing strategies but what about existing strategies which he is bound to follow, which took years before it was approved, would he dare create new one and rock the boat, or choose the easy way, the routinary way.
Thus it takes courage to be a leader and an open mind to be a manager. Organization tends to be overmanaged because there are people who are open minded enough to accept existing systems and move with the flow, but then organizations are often underled because only few has the courage to stand up, do the right thing whatever it takes and inject changes to fine-tune the system.
I appreciate the four competencies Bennies observed as common to some extent among his subjects: management of attention, management of meaning, management of trust, and management of self.
There is one senior personnel in our division whom most of the drivers and colleagues dislike to be with, for the sake of discussion I will call him Mr Z. Mr. Z has the reputation to be always late in his appointments, personal itineraries mixed during official travel time, unreliable information and poor public speaking quality. Then again Mr. Z is very kind and soft spoken that his flaws is often covered with his too good to be true attitude. He is the type who will not argue and just get along, he is cool headed and always manage to smile even in the midst of heated discussion or offensive comment, I am not sure if he is just too kind or he has nothing to say, in the end he makes you feel guilty for being upfront. By reading the module, I realize why many dislike him- he wastes other people’s time.
Speaking of the ability to translate ideas into tangible things using metaphor, this reminds me of our previous Technical Director for Operations & Extension. She is one of the few people I admire for being both a leader and a manager. I often describe her as CC: cool and clever. She would always explain complicated targets in simple and attainable ways, she would patiently discuss options, and coolly mediates to heated arguments and end up having her way. Always focus and output oriented she exemplify management of meaning and trust.
Management of self is what I am trying to master. I try to analyze my performance in objective manner, acknowledge failure and convert it into challenge and consider mistake as opportunity to troubleshoot. I believe that no project from planning to implementation is ever perfect, something wrong will always arise along the way, and a manager must know how to troubleshoot to make things work than blame people and myself for the things gone wrong.
Someway or another in the organization, positive things such as empowerment, belongingness and work motivations are being felt but sadly you cannot have it in just one corner, you can only enjoy it piece by piece for the people in top management are moulded as agriculturist, researchers, veterinarians, scientist, etcetera but not as managers more not as leaders.
My boss who serves as the Regional High Value Crops Development Program (HVCDP) Coordinator and sometimes act as Officer-In-Charge of the Operations Division in the absence of the Division Chief, would often complain that she cannot think clearly on how to fine tune implementation of HVCDP programs, draft strategies, conceptualize new ideas, coordinate and consult with key stakeholders due to the paper works which ties her to her desk and inquiring clients which consumes most of her time. She has to recommend, approve or make recommendation for every letter request, vouchers for job orders and input supplies, memorandum of agreements for various projects and many others. On top of that, she has to attend one meeting to another, consultations, dialogue, workshop, bidding, training and orientation with LGU and other partners. These entire routinary tasks consume her, until she is dead tired and weak to inject new ideas.
Leaders must be conceptualist, Bennis says, which I totally agree. I imagine myriad great ideas that probably floating in our Regional Executive Director’s mind but in the end he cannot have much flexibility because of political and upper management pressure. He might have fresh ideas on implementing strategies but what about existing strategies which he is bound to follow, which took years before it was approved, would he dare create new one and rock the boat, or choose the easy way, the routinary way.
Thus it takes courage to be a leader and an open mind to be a manager. Organization tends to be overmanaged because there are people who are open minded enough to accept existing systems and move with the flow, but then organizations are often underled because only few has the courage to stand up, do the right thing whatever it takes and inject changes to fine-tune the system.
I appreciate the four competencies Bennies observed as common to some extent among his subjects: management of attention, management of meaning, management of trust, and management of self.
There is one senior personnel in our division whom most of the drivers and colleagues dislike to be with, for the sake of discussion I will call him Mr Z. Mr. Z has the reputation to be always late in his appointments, personal itineraries mixed during official travel time, unreliable information and poor public speaking quality. Then again Mr. Z is very kind and soft spoken that his flaws is often covered with his too good to be true attitude. He is the type who will not argue and just get along, he is cool headed and always manage to smile even in the midst of heated discussion or offensive comment, I am not sure if he is just too kind or he has nothing to say, in the end he makes you feel guilty for being upfront. By reading the module, I realize why many dislike him- he wastes other people’s time.
Speaking of the ability to translate ideas into tangible things using metaphor, this reminds me of our previous Technical Director for Operations & Extension. She is one of the few people I admire for being both a leader and a manager. I often describe her as CC: cool and clever. She would always explain complicated targets in simple and attainable ways, she would patiently discuss options, and coolly mediates to heated arguments and end up having her way. Always focus and output oriented she exemplify management of meaning and trust.
Management of self is what I am trying to master. I try to analyze my performance in objective manner, acknowledge failure and convert it into challenge and consider mistake as opportunity to troubleshoot. I believe that no project from planning to implementation is ever perfect, something wrong will always arise along the way, and a manager must know how to troubleshoot to make things work than blame people and myself for the things gone wrong.
Someway or another in the organization, positive things such as empowerment, belongingness and work motivations are being felt but sadly you cannot have it in just one corner, you can only enjoy it piece by piece for the people in top management are moulded as agriculturist, researchers, veterinarians, scientist, etcetera but not as managers more not as leaders.
