We continue our trip down memory lane with #8 on our Look Back That Isn’t A Top 10 with Leadership and Lighting.
Being a good leader was something I took very seriously back when I wrote this post (while I was Shop Foreman) and I take it even more so now (as General Manager). Everyone on the road is a leader in their own way, and much like there are numerous ways to do anything in our industry, there are also numerous ways to lead people. There are three other things that I want to say before we get to the post:
Respect – You should work hard to achieve respect every day.
I still won’t tell you what kind of leader I am, you will have to ask the people I work with.
The day has come and, Willie, I hope I’m doing you proud.
Leadership and Lighting
I had a few other ideas for the post this week, but listening to Herm Edwards this morning made me change my mind to the topic of leadership. We’ll get back to Herm later, but first I want to talk about the book Turn the Ship Around(given to me by fellow Bandit, Andrew Heid), written by L. David Marquet who was a USN Submarine Captain. In this book he discussed two primary styles of leading; Leader-Follower and Leader-Leader.
Leader-Follower
This is the classic military style of leadership. I outrank you, I give you an order, and you go do it. In the lighting world, I’m the crew chief, I tell the tech what to do, and the tech takes his stagehands and does it, then waits for the next set of instructions from me. This works… but is it most effective?
Leader-Leader
This is the new school thinking Captain Marquet brought to his submarine, and it was a tough sell. This goes against most military thinking. The idea is to teach all your men to become active leaders. To go straight back to the lighting example (as this is, a lighting blog), the tech comes to me and says, “I have enough space to go build the DS truss, can I take the guys and go do it?” This sounds simple but it isn’t always that easy. This can be tough because it takes a confident leader to not be threatened by teaching his people to be leaders.
This does not mean everyone can just run around doing whatever they want. Read what the tech said in the paragraph above: “Can I take the guys and do it?” The tech is actively taking control of the situation, and his crew chief is making the final decision. In the long run, this tech is being set up to become a crew chief quicker. This works as well… but is it most effective?
The answer is: There is no answer. I think Leader-Leader works best for our industry, and I bet many people would agree, but in some cases you have to defer to the Leader-Follower mentality. There is one key point with Leader-Leader that can become a slippery slope: There are 50 ways to do everything we do in our industry. This can lead to questioning everything, which is just as bad as questioning nothing. There is a balance that needs to be learned, but once it is, true growth can occur.
Are you a leader? What kind are you? If you aren’t a leader (and I bet more of you lead than you realize), what kind do you want to be? This is the point where I would normally go into the list of all the different boss types and how they act, but I don’t think that is really necessary. We all get The Bad Guy, The Nice Guy, The Micro-manager, etc., and I bet each one of you thought of specific people when you read that last sentence. But which of them do you most want to be like when you lead? Is it a combination of a couple of them?
However you lead, it comes down to one simple thing: Respect.
Whatever your leadership style is, you have to gain the respect of your crew and that is what is most important. I have toured with all different kinds of Production Managers while each had pros and cons, I always did my best for them, but not all of them earned my true respect. It is a tough thing to truly earn respect, but when it is earned, your people will gladly make that extra effort for you on the days you need it most.
At this point maybe some of you are wondering what kind of leader I am. I won’t say anything about how I feel I lead, but I will tell you about a few people that come to mind when I hear the word leader:
Herb Brooks.
He was the coach of the 1980 USA Men’s hockey team. From all I have read about him, he was brutal as a coach. He did whatever he could to make his players better, make them play for each other and their country.
Herm Edwards.
He was an NFL player and head coach. He is a teacher, a mentor, and a leader to many a player he coached. His outlook on things is so spot on. I heard him say this the other morning, “Lead from your feet, not your seat.” So simple, yet so true, and so hard to really do.
Gene Kranz.
He is probably most famous for being Flight Director for Apollo 13 but he also was one of the few men who helped build the space program. If there was one person I could meet, it would be him. Look up The Kranz Dictum, it is what he said after the accident of Apollo I. It gives me chills each time I read it.
I will add one more person to this list, and this is someone I know and am proud to call a friend. It’s rare that I single out a person I toured with, but I have to in this case. Willie Aames was an amazing leader. You knew he would go to bat for you when you needed him to. He was the ultimate in practice what you preach. It didn’t matter how bad things were on a show day, when he said I need you to do this for me I wanted to do it. Thank you, Willie. When the time comes, I hope I do as well as you did for us.
“You win with people, not with talent. So the quality of the people is very important in building your team.” Herb Brooks
Until next time, “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.”
Mark
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