I gripped the handlebars for the umpteenth time, clenched my teeth, took a deep breath and started spinning the mountain bike peddles furiously. I clawed 
my way up the steep slope, barely dodging those huge rocks on the path, bouncing over the stones that tried to rip the bike from my vice grip.
You can’t get me! My brain screamed at my tormentors, I’m a seasoned road cyclist. I don’t give a rip if this is my first time mountain biking; I can handle all the obstacles you throw at me. Who cares if you ARE a black diamond trail…?
A few hours later, the sweat trickled down my dusty cheeks as we loaded the bikes onto the rack of Terry’s SUV. During the drive back to the condo on the Western shore of Lake Tahoe, we chatted about the similarities between mountain biking and leadership. They both:
1. Seem easy to those who haven’t climbed the difficult mountains.
2. Provide peaks and valleys.
3. Require tremendous focus on what’s right in front of you.
4. Demand that you know where you are going.
As I reflect on my arduous experience, I now realize that mountain biking, like leadership, mandates that you manage the tension between being both a manager (who concentrates on the task at hand) and a leader (who inspires with a compelling vision). It was a lesson I first learned from Peter Drucker when I as an executive at UCLA…
I had the good fortune of having lunch with Peter Drucker, considered the father of management, according to Harvard Business Review. We met to discuss the overall strategy of the new organization we were building at UCLA. With my head soaring with Professor Drucker’s ideas and insights about the future, I later drove back to UCLA — only to find myself in my office, reviewing budget numbers for a project.
This experience summarized my responsibilities as an executive. One minute I was thinking big picture and creating long-term strategies, and the next I was clarifying objectives and managing operations. Was I leading or managing? My pragmatic answer is, I was doing both.
Leaders who stretch when they’re pulled by opposing demands have been answering “both” for years.
Consider Sam Walton, founder of retail giant Wal-Mart, who envisioned a chain of stores worldwide as he analyzed the weekly sales reports of his early stores. Roberto Goizueta, who led Coca-Cola to become the most recognizable trademark in the world, was an above-the-fray CEO and a hands-on detail man. Of course, Walt Disney would never have been able to build his castles in the air if his business-oriented, bottom-line brother Roy had not been at his side building their foundations.
In his analysis of industrial leaders, Professor Edwin Locke pointed out that “this constant movement between concrete (details) and the abstract (vision) is critical in business because one has to know not only where one is going but how to get there.”[i]
After reviewing approximately 1,300 scientific studies on leadership in his comprehensive book, Professor Gary Yukl concluded that “most scholars seem to agree that success as a manager … in modern organizations necessarily involves leading.”[ii]
To which I add; success as a leader also involves managing.
If I spend all of my day in the details as a CEO of a company like Wal-Mart,
it would be trouble, because I wouldn’t be prepared to speak to the big issues
that the country or the world should face. But . . . if you spend all of the time
at 50,000 feet, [you] are not out talking to customers [as] real people. . . .
Often the interaction directly with customers, in the details of their family
and their issues, is what inspires me to want to help solve the big issues…
Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke[iii]
Where do you need to grow? Perhaps your visionary style is a bit blurry. If so, invest a little time every day developing the big-picture competencies of “leaders.” On the other hand, if your rational style is underdeveloped, perhaps you need to become more grounded in the fact-oriented competencies of the “manager” style. By developing both, you will gain the agility required to stretch when you are pulled by these opposing demands. You’ll also be able to conquer any mountain on your bike.
How do you manage the tension between being a leader and manager? What tactics help you maintain the agility needed in today’s rapidly changing environment?
[i] Edwin Locke, The Prime Movers: Traits of the Great Wealth Creators. AMACOM: New York, 2000, 49.
[ii] Gary Yukl, Leadership in Organizations. Prentice Hall: Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2006, 6.
[iii] AP Interview: Wal-Mart CEO talks leadership, lifehttp://www.winknews.com/mobile/index.php/mobile/article/AP-Interview-Wal-Mart-CEO-talks-leadership-life#ixzz1D0UHnoA2.
Dave Jensen helps leaders manage ambiguity, gain buy-in to any change, improve decision-making, and achieve difficult goals in today’s complex, competitive, and conflicting environment. For a FREE Chapter of his forthcoming book, The Executive’s Paradox – How to Stretch When You’re Pulled by Opposing Demands, visit http://davejensenonleadership.com/
