Leadership for Intelligence Professionals   

Views on Balancing Leadership and Management from the Business World

In the business community there has been one strong advocate for “doing it all”.  That has been Larry Bossidy the (now-retired) Chief Executive Officer of Honeywell.  When asked in an interview; “Many CEOs delegate execution [management] to the chief operating officer [COO]...Isn’t that one solution?” He responded;

I don’t believe in this CEO-COO concept. It divides the left brain from the right brain...If you are trying to groom leaders...You want to breed people with both capabilities...CEOs must be involved in execution, not just strategy.

When it was pointed out by the interviewer that “CEOs  are supposed to be thinking big thoughts about strategy.  How can they do that if they don't delegate the grunt work of day-to-day execution to line managers?” To that Bossidy responded;

You certainly have to be a strategist, but you better make sure you're involved in the orchestration, implementation of strategy as well. If you don't and it doesn't succeed, you're toast....[but] Micromanaging is to be avoided at all costs.

Since retirement, Bossidy has written a book in which he further emphasizes the need for the CEO to also function as the COO. 

People think of execution as the tactical side of the business, something leaders delegate while they focus on bigger issues.  This idea is completely wrong.

Others seem to generally agree.  David Allen advocates that the role of an organizational Leader is to “Make it Happen”. The bes Leaders focus on framing the vision, crafting the purpose, capturing and communicating the “spirit” of the organization. Actually getting things done is left to managers and front line workers. In fact, some leaders fail to see that making things happen is their job.

On the other hand Lee Iococca former CEO of Chrysler seems to advocate a focus on Leadership and a hands off approach to management: “Management  is easy; select the good people and set the right priorities.”