systematicHR

Machiavelli asks “Is It Better To Be Loved or Feared?” Recently Harvard Business Schoole professor Scott Snook asked this question comparing the leadership styles of college basketball’s Bobby Knight and Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski.

After long careers, both have similar win-loss records for their teams and are acknowledged as top coaches in the collegiate ranks. So what do Knight and Krzyzewski tell us about leadership?

Using case studies, Snook’s students are introduced to the coaches at pivotal moments: Knight has just been fired from Indiana and is unrepentant about his behavior. Krzyzewski is mulling a big-bucks offer to coach the professional Los Angeles Lakers basketball team. Supporting material shows film clips of some of the more notorious Knight moments as well as Coach K’s press conference after turning down the Lakers job. Students come away with a deep sense of each coach’s personal beliefs and values. ((Silverthorne, Sean, August 14, 2006. On Managing with Bobby Knight and “Coach K.”” Harvard Business Review Working Knoweldge. Retrieved from http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5464.html on August 14, 2006.))

Silverthorne and Snook both correctly tell us that this has less to do with management style than today’s realities of what is expected out of a leader. In earlier generations, “tough love” management was not frowned upon, even the type of tough love Bobby Knight was liable to dish out. Instead, in today’s world of leadership versus management and employee engagement where we’re expected to help people enjoy their work and workplace, more positive mentoring relationships are expected. Our managers of today are expected to lead people to believe (understand) the positive attributes about why they should do something or do it differently.

For hiring managers, one lesson is to understand the dominant type of motivation supported by your corporate culture and hire people who thrive in those situations. Be clear in hiring interviews what the situation is, says Snook. “Don’t come here if you’re not into teamwork. Don’t come here if you don’t like working and collaborating. Whatever it is. Be clear in the interview and you’ll attract those kinds of people. It’s back to the model about being more self-aware and, at the organizational level, more aware of what your predominant culture is. Then you translate that into who you attract, select, hire, socialize, promote, and fire.” ((Ibid))

There are still strongholds of tough love out there. Most sales cultures I’ve seen are that way – if you don’t produce enough, you’re going to get fired. In this instance, we’re not leading people to produce sales in any better way, they are motivated by the negative – the potential of losing their jobs. However, for most types of employees in today’s world this will be a turn-off. Make sure that you are reinforcing your communications with the a good look at both the situation you’re in as well as enveloping your communications in the company’s employer brand.