Leadership - Opportunities lost in the flat organisation

Lots of workplaces are going through the joy of middle management being removed or drastically reduced, often referred to as flattening the organisation. The planned result in theory is if there are less layers of management then the organisation will be running more efficiently and produce more cash for the shareholders.

Observing changes in many organisations recently I have seen this flattening of the organisation have another effect which is killing the organisation off. Leadership opportunities are being stifled.

Talk to any manager and he will let you know his aim is to raise his team's utilisation better than 80% and he will be a happy man. So what happens as each team member approaches their ceiling of utilisation, they tend to get bogged down in the process required to run at 100%.

Interestingly when we examine the bulk of the leadership traints we see tasks such as influencing others, envisioning our team, developing new ideas to streamline our business activities. What do all of these require - time, however each member of our team now has very little time left - we just robbed them. So if we are a management guru we would say this is great we have raised our utilisation to a high level.

Long term we have taken the strategic leadership away from the our team and we have replaced it with the short term tactical advantage of improved efficiency, but how do we get the balance right? With no strategic improvement we will be overtaken by our competitors after our current processes become left behind in our focus on maximum efficiency and no improvements from within.

So while we are driven from above to make our team more efficient, we need to ensure our team members have time to develop their ideas and let their leadership come out and show.

Leadership - An opportunity knocks

Recently I visited with a team who were working a really tough schedule put in place by their boss. While all the members knew what the outcome was to be, no-one had allocated the tasks to get to the goal. Interestingly they were all eager to get to the job site and get stuck into getting the job done. Once there, they appraised the obvious tasks to be completed and then found in many cases they didn't have the necessary tools or access.

Each day the group came in and complained that no-one had organised this or that and hence why they were struggling to make their schedule.

What interesting group dynamics, the group could identify that they needed some leadership to direct and influence the team in the completion of this task yet no-one wanted to put their hand up and take a shot at it. I watched in disbelief wonder what in their workplace was making them hold back. As I spent some more time with the larger group it became clearer to me. What had happened at this workplace, happens in many and often leaves us unsure of when and how to act.

This workplace had recently gone through a big transformation with a new management structure put in place. Lots of the members of these teams were struggling to identify and cope with the new managers in place, would they be supported if they took on the leadership mantle? What would happen if they made a mistake? Why weren't these new managers organising things?

This left me thinking when will the management clear the air and empower these people to bring out their best.

And if we were the people in this group would we take the risk and assume the leadership role, what an opportunity to show your capability. If you find yourself in a situation like this take a look around and see if this is your chance to move into a leadership role.