Surrounding yourself with leaders

Found the linked post above via Carnival of the Capitalists, and it got me thinking. Not only is this more-or-less how things seem to work on this new team here at my new job -- with a soupcon more of classic leadership provided by our fearless semi-leader -- but I'm also slightly surprised to find that I think I might like it much better than being, myself, In Charge.

However, I think Strange Brand does miss the boat on a few key elements. Maybe it's just because I don't like it when I don't know who's in charge, having been burned far too many times in my last two jobs on things I thought I was doing only to find out I just wasted two weeks (or months) of my life working on something that someone else takes away, or has handed to them. Not because I was doing a poor job, or at least I've never been given that explanation. Just because lines of authority and/or communication have never been clarified and some arbitrary decision gets made at some level where they may not even have known I'd already done the legwork, or some "manager" decides an effort needs a "team" but the personalities and politics of that team mean someone else is going to make all of the decisions ... unless I wanted to choose that battle, which of course I never (well, hardly ever) did.

So that's a long digression to say that I may still be reacting to those experiences as opposed to the reality of the situation here, which I'm still sussing out after just two months, anyway. But, to the extent that it seems vestigially true here, I'll sum up my difference of opinion with the author of the linked piece by saying that the distinction between leader and led is a false dichotomy, in at least two ways off the top of my head:

(1) Any successful organization has a division of labor. If the putative leader of the overall thing does not defer to the, for example, technical leadership of the legal guy, or the financial guy, or the supply guy, when the questions at hand are in their areas of expertise, the putative leader will be very sorry when he's in court, out of business, or doesn't have any paper for the copy machine. So, the mixed-bag-o-leaders the author holds out as a unique solution isn't, very.

(2) I also don't buy this description, at all:

There are a lot of talented people who need to be supervised, and there are a lot of people who get a thrill out of micromanaging.

Supervision isn't the same thing as management, and management isn't the same thing as micromanaging. At. All.

At the first project, we had three 'bosses'. The first one was a nuclear-strike manager. Very hands-off until she felt like making command, and I do mean command, decisions. That was the first time I ever had stuff yanked out from under me to the total disregard of whatever I may (or, toward the end, may not) have put into the work already. We actually formed a little support group to go out for coffee and whatever to boost ourselves back up after some of her blitzkrieg 'management' incidents.

The second was laissez-faire to the point of a truly invisible hand. We splintered away from supporting each other until we moved offices and had a nice little suite to compare notes more easily, and although it was much kinder and gentler I will say the work surely suffered through the total absence of management.

The third (after a 3 or 4 month interregnum vacillating between micromanagement and no management) was the classic micromanager nightmare: Totally did not trust anyone to be able to do any aspect of their jobs, despite the fact that we had been doing ours for 5-7 years and she had been doing hers for 20 minutes. I don't want to dwell on her because she was such a terrible, terrible boss.

Nor will I get into the bosses at the second project, since there was actual malice and deliberate damage inflicted there, which is a problem of an entirely different order.

But I think these few examples trivially demonstrate that his dichotomy is not a useful one. Yes, there are a few people who like to dictate, command, and control. They don't make good bosses and they make terrible managers. There are also people who like to be strictly organized by others and only accountable within the scope of whether or not they followed orders. They can only be classified as high-maintenance drones, who make pretty lousy employees in my experience.

Normal Earth People like flexibility in how we do our jobs. Whatever our own level of work, we like peers to consult when we have functional or tactical questions, higher-level folks to consult when we have operational or strategic questions, lower-level folks to help us get things done. Sometimes we like to make decisions, sometimes we like to build consensus, and sometimes we like someone else to put their neck(s) out. We like to know when it's our call and when it's not, even if we don't always like the division of decision-making. Personally, I like to know who's accountable for task X, so that if it's me I'll sweat the details but if it's not I'll save my sweat for something else. I love sharing credit with folks who've shared the work, or even subordinates who haven't done much but could benefit from the confidence or status boost. Just don't ask me to do the work for someone who won't acknowledge my contribution.

Back on the horse

Post-election and post-Thanksgiving and post-I-Really-thought-a-new-job-was-just-around-the-corner.

Ready for my morning dose of bile from Chris Matthews and whatever gang he's scrounged up this AM. I've watch a couple I think I didn't blog about -- the one immediately post-election with four whiny pathetic Democrats, including Maureen Dowd. What is wrong with that woman? More importantly, what is wrong with the world that she is employed for whatever it is people think she contributes to the NYT op-ed page, for Jeebus' sake (it's not thought, and it's not insight, and it's not information -- does someone in the universe find her "entertaining" or does she have J. Edgar Hoover's blackmail files?)?

Another one was more balanced, and included David Brooks, a fave of mine.

Today:

Matthews has an awful new haircut -- not a Ratboy, but heading toward Bangs.
Today's line-up: Andrea Mitchell, Joe Klein, Campbell Brown, Deroy Murdock (Scripps-Howard/National Review).
Hm, the token black guy is the token conservative. The time's they have a-changed.

Why haven't we been hit again?

Mitchell: Just because al-Qaida hasn't struck, doesn't mean we shouldn't worry. They could be a victim of their own success, trying to beat 9/11. Otoh, we've broken them down somewhat. (Gee, funny how no one noticed this prior to the election.) But the affiliates spawned by al-Qaida are more threatening.

Klein: NY's still the big target, we do have better intelligence, heavy duty former CIA covert action people, now providing info out of mosques that might be breeding trouble, but otoh no one knows why the next attack hasn't come yet.

Brown: Intelligence is getting better, here and abroad, French, Spanish, Pakistan, Saudis -- and their intel services don't play by the rules we do.

Murdock: See something, say something; good tips coming forward and e.g. subway plot nipped in bud.

Mitchell: They have prevented some things. But we have also become more protected.

Klein: Iraq has been a huge recruiting poster for al-Qaida and the other assorted groups.

Mitchell: There are only two people who can approve US/UK hits from al-Qaida, and one is in jail. Their replacements aren't as Westernized, not as adept, as their predecessors.

Murdock: The more spectacular the better, but the next attack doesn't have to be big numbers, could be something in the middle of Macy's, that would have a big impact. One reason we're safer is the Patriot Act and its dismantling of the wall between intelligence services and police. (Cut off by Matthews)

Matthews: The real danger is the suitcase bomb.

Klein: Let's plug Graham Allison's new book about nuclear threat.

Matthews: are we safer or simply a fatter target?
Brown: Safer, you can't ignore the basic stuff, everything that we've done, dispersion of al-Qaida, going down that list one by one.
Klein: Safer but facing a more intense enemy.
Matthews: More diverse
Klein: More diverse and more intense enemy.
Mitchell: Which is harder to get at and ... Safer marginally but we don't know what we don't know.


Commercial break: This is the second show where I've actively noticed that Campbell Brown seems to be jiggering ever so slightly away from the left-left mainstream Democratic liberal-near-anti-American line. She doesn't couch every single statement with how bad things are, or that how bad things are is of course Bush's (Republicans') fault, and she seems to be consistently hewing the factual line, reasonable things ("can't ignore the basic stuff").

Back: Eeeeeeew. Edwards' bye-bye NC tour o' pointlessness, plus Billary and so forth.

2008, will Hilary run? Klein says no. It's a very personal thing. She *loves* being in the center, not being attacked/anger/vitriol, won't go for it.

Brown: She still has huge obstacles to overcome. She has HUGE negatives.

Matthews: Look at the map Kerry just lost on, where does she see herself winning, West Virginia, Ohio, Missouri, anything?

Klein: She could win; she's a Midwesterner (Matthews: Not lately) and a Southerner. (!!!)

Mitchell: No one thought she could win the Senate seat in NY.

Matthews: She's a charmer when you're with her.

Murdock: Come to Daddy is I think what many people on the right are thinking. Hilary's the Republicans' dream candidate. She'll say what her husband said, who said he'd finish up his term, and then ran for President anyway.

Brown: Well, she is putting a team together. For either, for both.

Who's has the best shot at giving Hilary the hardest run for her money in the primaries?

Brown: Edwards. He has the ability to run as an outsider. (Matthews: because the voters rejected him) Well, yeah. Biggest problem: has no platform from which to run.

Klein: He doesn't have a sense of humor. There's a there there; I don't know where, where.

Mitchell: Not yet presidential material. I wouldn't say that he couldn't be.

Murdock: [Evan Bayh] I don't know if he's a strong threat but does represent something other than a liberal like Hilary who's a blue state and more than a one-termer like Edwards who didn't even deliver his own state.

Matthews: What's almost as good as a governor? A veteran having run for President before. Kerry will run again.

Klein: I think he's suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Look at the big sloppy governors. What the Democrats really need is someone who doesn't need to prove that he's the smartest guy in the room.

Brown: They need somebody with National Security Credentials, and that's what none of these people except Kerry which ended up being a sinkhole had.

Murdock: I doubt [Kerry will run again]. I think what the Democrats really have to do is come up with an agenda. There's a lot of stuff they're against, they need to determine what they're for.

Matthews: But anyone who beats Hilary in the primaries is God. And he can win the general election.

Mitchell: One of Kerry's big advantages is, he sat on all that money.


Tell me something I don't know

Brown: Dems will start beating up on Hollywood because they can't touch abortion and they need something on their side, to deal with on the morals issue.

Klein: Senator Harry Reid has a giant portrait of Mark Twain in his office. And I think that's really cool.

Mitchell: Paul Wolfowitz would like to be the UN Ambassador.

Murdock: NY State has just been ranked at the bottom (50) of all states in terms of economic freedom. Weak economy, anemic Republican performance in last election, and Pataki's Presidential aspirations are summarized in one word: Fergeddaboudit. Regulations, union control of things, not much growth.


Note: She's a Southerner? O.M.G. Speaking of not clear on the concept.

Those pesky frogs

I've been haranguing elsewhere about the whole Ivory Coast snafu, and am mainly posting this here at the moment to remind myself to look into it & comment more, later.

(Trying to wrap up a major piece of work here and get some other paperwork in the mail before the end of the day.)

Strong but true

I'm supposed to be working, but since I got word on Thursday that I wasn't getting any adjustment to my position here -- which means not only that the people I knew were ticked off that I escaped their previous plot (a restructuring bait-and-switch that would have made my life a living hell, and not for any piddly 40-hour-work-week, either) but that the internal subdivision in which I'd found temporary respite doesn't mind sticking it to me, also.

Good thing I'm already looking for my next job.

Anyway, after Thursday's Gud Nooze, I found out on Friday (a day I'd previously hoped to take off, so I could, er, take off), that a significant deadline that had been shifted out to the second week of December had at some point been reshifted back to the Monday after Thanksgiving. No, no one thought to mention that to me. Meaning, if I'm to have any hope of getting out of this godforsaken town over the horriday, at all, then I'm working this Sunday. Today. Terrific.

I should write a book on this organization's suicide. "How to Gut Morale and Inspire Loathing".

I'm not exactly motivated to work, obviously, but all the less so since that whole sideshow (I care so little it's not exactly front and center in my life) is running alongside my personal life going to utter ruin over the last month -- long time coming, but not the kind of thing for which a person can really be braced. It profoundly sucks regardless.

Anyway, to put all that in perspective, here's a little commentary from the Iraq front of the warn terra:

"Here's an alternative headline the [NY] Times' staff might have considered: 'Showing Their Resolve, Rebels Terrorize Families, Target Children, Disembowel Women, Behead the Elderly.'"

Don't bother with the NYT article, but do follow the Times of London reality check link.