Googling Leadership

Over the past fifteen years I have worked with some amazing managers.  They are dedicated, hard working and with few exceptions most were promoted into their roles primarily because of their technical expertise.  This is not to say that many don’t have exceptional leadership skills, but that “soft skills” are often viewed as being less important than their more quantifiable counterparts.

This is not unlike the culture that created Google, where algorithmic expertise was prized above all other.  A manager’s primary role was to use their scientific superiority to direct, decide and delegate.   Then 2009 happened and plummeting stock values inspired Google to turn their statistical superiority inward to answer a question that has plagued leaders since the dawn of business.  “What do employees really want and need to be successful?”

Applying their metric mastery to mining the most in-demand management traits, Google searched itself for the terms that best defined the qualities of a good Google manager, developing a list of eight characteristics that after all this data crunching were not particularly surprising at all.

Highly Effective Google Managers must:

1. Have a clear vision and strategy for the team
2. Be productive and results-oriented
3. Be good communicators
4. Have key technical skills
5. Help employees with career development
6. Express interest in employees’ success and well-being
7. Empower your team and don’t micro-manage
8. Be a good coach

What was revealing was the order of the priorities.  In a culture built on technology a manager’s mastery of key technical skills was rated last in importance by their employees.  What employees wanted most were “even-keeled bosses who made time for one-on-one meetings, who helped people puzzle through problems by asking questions, not dictating answers, and who took an interest in employees’ lives and careers.”

2012 provided a similar level of critical feedback for public sector leaders with the Government-Wide Best Places to Work in the Federal Government index score dropping 5%, the largest change in the history of the rankings. [ii]

This would seem like a perfect opportunity to apply the positively proven priorities demonstrated in Google’s Project Oxygen, but knowing is not enough.  When faced with a choice between the comforts of conventionality to potentially floundering in unfamiliarity, most managers choose the stay and pray approach.

If absolutely undeniable emotionally overwhelming evidence was enough, those who survive a heart attack would do whatever is necessary to prevent another infarction; yet only one in seven makes enduring changes in diet and exercise.

The solution is not in expecting technical leaders to “change their spots”.   The shift required from a technical mindset to a coaching role is too great to be accomplished in mandated or short term training.   To an engineer, as an example, the apparent ambiguity of leadership priorities can be positively perplexing.  Faced with the choice between spending time with algorithmic accuracy or managerial mysticism leaders spend their time doing what they do best.

In times of dramatic change (now) the best coaches are not those who have gone before us but those who are traveling with us.  Being the best at what has been done before is not enough.  We must think differently, creating a culture where coaching is not the responsibility of one but an opportunity for many.    Instead of asking a manager to change habits they have spent the last twenty years developing create a parallel community where rising stars have the opportunity to share best practices.  Pairing high achievers from disparate functional organizations increases institutional awareness while avoiding the conflict of competing for limited key departmental positions.