Chapter 12: Producers as Leaders

What do you call a leader who cannot do the work, who has never done the work? Manager.

You have worked for these people, have you not? Like the manager of a group of tech writers who cannot spell, and who writes all his emails in lower case. Like the engineer with a master’s degree who has never designed a working product. Like the graphic arts manager who can only draw stick figures.

That’s a recipe for mediocrity. No competent person likes working for someone else that has no idea of what he or she is doing. We Producers all want to work for considerate experts who can teach us and mentor us. Where do we find those experts – in the ranks of Paraducers? No!

To a person, those experts are all Producers. They are people who have worked hard, studied hard, served well, and now have the opportunity to lead other Producers. The highest demand in business is for Producers who can lead.

Let’s get our terms straight before proceeding. I have used two common words, leadership and management. What do they mean?

In my experience I have found that property, money, facilities, expenses, paper clips, cash flow… all these things can be managed. But people must be led.

Survey the business books at your local bookstore. You will find many books on both topics, management and leadership. When I became a group leader for the first time, I scanned the available books for help, because as a Producer I want to do my best at every pursuit. I bought a few books by title, and one of them was called ‘How to Manage People’ or something similar.

The book was a bit stiff and dry, and struck me as a perfect labor union shop steward manual. I flipped to the copyright page and saw that I had bought a book published in the 1950’s. (Where’s my receipt?) Those were the days when people were managed just like paper clips.

One of my pet peeves with business is how they have renamed the personnel department to human resources. I never had a problem with the title, personnel, but the new name I find utterly dehumanizing, in spite of the wording. You see, I am a human being, with all the rights and responsibilities that implies. A human resource is simply a resource in a biological package, a resource to be moved, directed, restricted, allocated, rationed, recalled, deployed or mothballed as with any other physical resource. At least with the term personnel, I was still a person. Now I’m just a human.

The Paraducers in business have a subconscious tendency to view persons as human resources. This is not intentional in most cases, and they mean no harm, but the effects are present nonetheless. I think that the last 15 or 20 years of business books on leadership are a reaction to that tendency.

That’s management: Moving resources about. Works for stuff, not for people.

How is leadership different? Leadership recognizes that each person has drives and desires, a need to succeed, a need for affirmation (self and external), and a need to be a part of an important enterprise. Recognizing this, leaders band people together into groups (I’ll avoid the hackneyed term team), express a vision of a common goal consistent with the organization’s needs and their personal needs, then set them loose on the world’s difficult problems.

The term leadership implies that the leader is out front, perhaps taking some arrows, inspiring the troops to move in the proper direction. The great thing about leadership is that it is a lot less time intensive than management, because Producers are intelligent. Give a Producer the proper vision and goals, and get out of the way! Contrast that with the marionette skills needed in a manager.

I’m telling you all this stuff about leadership because, as a Producer, you have the potential to be a leader! Before you start getting pictures in your head of having to lead huge company meetings or speak at trade shows, understand that there are as many types of leaders as there are Producers. As a Producer in your company, you likely work with other Producers of the same stripe, whether artists or geeks, and you all understand one another on that basis. That makes your work as a leader easier. So take a deep breath and let that anxiety go.

What’s more, if you are a Producer you have a responsibility to me and the miscellaneous billions on Earth to lead, because if you don’t the Paraducers are more than willing to collect that paycheck and do mediocre work, managing you and your coworkers like office supplies.

Now that you are convinced, how do you develop those leadership skills? Your own template as a Producer provides many of the lessons a leader needs to teach:

• self discipline
• vision and goals
• learning continuously
• taking the long view while also focusing on the details
• never giving up
• failure driving success
• mentoring others
• common courtesy
• personal morality
• standards of excellence
• rejecting mediocrity
• The Golden Rule

You already have these characteristics. Communicate them to others. Producers want to be valued and be part of something important. They understand the value of courtesy and perseverance and morality.

Communicating these ideals is the first step. But let’s not be like the “do what I say, not what I do” crowd. As a leader you have to walk the walk. Cue the anxiety attacks!

It’s not that bad because you only need one thing I left off the list above: Asking for forgiveness.

This may seem sissy to you power Producers out there, but sooner or later you are going to step on some toes, or slam someone’s fingers in their desk drawer. Whether by accident or on purpose, your credibility as a leader will be judged by how well you recognize any deviation from the straight and narrow, especially if it is your fault. When you have wronged another person, humble yourself, admit your error and ask for forgiveness.

As a leader, you are no more perfect than your coworkers. Fact is, your faults are on display 24/7 to anyone with eyes and/or ears. When you screw up, make it right. As you work through the list and ask for forgiveness on a weekly basis, your group will build trust.

There are lots of good books on leadership that you can read. My favorite is the classic, “Leaders, The Strategies for Taking Charge,” by Bennis and Nanus. ^[39] Not many people are born leaders, but you can learn. So learn.

“But I work in a Paraducer managed zoo and have no opportunity for leadership.” I must disagree. Every Producer has an opportunity for leadership with every personal interaction. When your coworker is griping about your boss, interrupt him and say, “Have you talked with Jane about that?” When your boss is weasling up to telling you to work the entire weekend, stop him short, “You know, Bob, I could probably get this whole problem fixed by Monday morning.”

I had a boss once who gave these great pep talks about our company being a family and such. Then one day we were discussing someone else who worked at the company. My boss asked me what we could do with ‘Joe’, and I gave him a few options. He then commented, “Maybe we should just fire him and be done with it.” So much for the family propaganda. That was the beginning of the end for me at that company.

As a Producer, you can solve problems, difficult ones. Add to that the traits I mentioned and you will be unstoppable. No Paraducer will get the better of you (because you are better) and no confidential lie will stick to you (because no one would believe it of you). Not only will you benefit personally, but our entire country will benefit as you and millions of other Producers like you take charge and lead our nation forward. Awesome!