Why Leader & Not Manager (continued)

In my Blog from November 15th titled "Why Leader & Not Manager?" I left four bullets that I planned to follow up on. Well, this is the follow up.

At a high level the following bullets are suggestions for how you might learn whether your boss (or boss to be) is up to being a leader and good manager.

How can you spot the qualities (good or bad) before it's too late?
· The best chance you have of getting helpful information on a prospective leader/manager is by talking to people that have worked with or are working with him/her.
Questions:
· Does "Joe/Josefina" (she from here on out) take suggestions from her team?
· Does she stop to talk to you without there having to be an agenda related to a key project or task you're responsible for?
· Does the executive team actively seek out the leader for advice and council?
· During all hands meetings is she able to connect with the team or does she talk until the meetings over?
· Does she provide strong support for the team when difficult problems occur on a project (i.e., executive participation or push back)
· The above are just some of the questions, but the answers to any of these could be very telling about the type of leader you're about to get involved with.
· Why are the "good" qualities so important and the "bad" so potentially damaging?
· The good qualities allow for strong team development and greater interaction with the customers (see Nov 15th Blog for more detail)
· Good qualities can be the difference between your team being considered a critical part of the business or just a money pit
· Good qualities will attract more good people, which will serve to make the team that much stronger
· Bad qualities (lack of trust, inability to connect with the team or customers, lack of vision and no support for getting through difficult situations) are the death knell of any organization.
In the end a leader can only be successful if they are getting the job done and in the process helping to make IT an integral & trusted part of the enterprise. However, like a successful project should be measured on more than just "on-time, on-budget" completion a successful organization needs to be a place where people enjoy working with one another. I've been on many teams where work got done for a while, but the cut throat nature of the environment meant that we were less efficient and unable to retain or recruit the best people.
· How do you measure yourself against these "good" and "bad" characteristics?
· Can you take feedback (positive or critical) from a subordinate or customer and learn from it? (good)
· Do you find that most of the ideas in your department are yours (bad)
· Does your team participate actively in meetings, even when you're in the room (good)
· Do you regularly talk with each member of your team about things other than work (good)
· Do you send out company wide messages without team input (bad)
· Do you provide regular (monthly or better) performance feedback, both positive and negative (good)
· Do you get invites from team members to participate in activities (good)
· Do you make fun of yourself/laugh at yourself in front of the team (good)
· Do you fold your arms across your chest when presenting to the team (bad)
With most of the above bullets the assumption should be that the converse of a "bad" behavior is probably a "good" behavior and vice versa.