Leading vs. Managing

In this week's edition, we look at some of the reader feedback on last week's column on management problems at the National Zoo.

Craig "Rocky" Rockwell, an assistant natural resource manager at the Clarkston, Wash., Natural Resource Office of the Army Corps of Engineers, chimed in with a thoughtful essay that jumped off from University of Maryland Professor Henry Sims' statement that the verb "to lead" comes from a Norse word meaning "to guide the course of a ship."

"One thing that I hear voiced but rarely see enacted is that there is a vast difference between management and leadership," Rockwell writes. "The problem I see in the government is that we appoint our managers to be our leaders. We don't act upon the knowledge that leadership can come from any level within an organization. "We have locked the liability and accountability down to the point that our managers have to be involved in every decision. The combination of appointing leadership only to the top levels and keeping all responsibility for decision-making within the top levels makes a manager's job too huge to live up to and forces the entire organization to wait on the managers.

"Now, add to that the tremendous budget crunches that managers have to handle, and the managers are so buried in administrative quagmires that the ship stops moving for lack of resources and lack of attention. This leads to subordinates who become discouraged because they can't do anything, have no stake in the decisions, and are frustrated knowing that the ship is stalled. So, they fall into the pit of apathy, and are reduced to doing what they're told to do -- no more, no less.

"There are three keys to breaking this cycle.

• "Empower employees to do their jobs. In the instance of the zoo, if the elephant keeper notices a health problem with an elephant, the leadership to see that the elephant is brought back to health should begin with that keeper.
• "Expect and act upon suggestions and advice from employees at all levels, making sure to let everyone see how their input is used to solve a problem, or improve a process, or get a job done in a more timely fashion.
• "Realize that leadership comes from all levels of an organization. It is not always the commander of the ship that guides it. Without the lookout in the crow's nest watching for obstacles, a ship would wreck."

Finally, an Army civilian gets the last word: "After reading your article on the zoo, a funny thought crossed my mind. The story, with a few word changes, could be about the care and feeding of civil service folks like myself!"

Next week: Put the mouse down, and back away from your desk.