Brad was bright, hardworking, and was always at the top of the collection board.  He was very analytical and always seemed to have the most efficient way of doing things.  He was independent and capable of working with minimal direction.  In fact, Brad preferred little direction.  Brad was driven by earning money and became easily frustrated with any change in policy that threatened to change the playing field by which he earned his living.  Does Brad sound like anyone in your shop?  Would Brad make a good supervisor?

We’ll come back to Brad in a minute.  In my work as a consultant and coach working with collection agencies, I am often asked about the ability to teach leadership to people?  It is my experience that it is easier to teach “management” to people than “leadership.”  Management is about doing things the right way.  Leadership is about doing the right things.  Management is more about the process and procedures of the job.  Collection manuals, FDCPA manuals, compliance manuals, client manuals, collection letters, collection call training materials, scenario training are all part of the elements that we use to tell us how to do our jobs (maybe we have so many things that begin with “C” because we are in the collection business… sorry, bad joke).

These management elements are critical to every operation.  Some are standard to every collection operation (i.e., compliance issues) while others are the tactical strategies (i.e., number and content of letters, flow of accounts, how and when the dialer is used, whether and how scoring of accounts is used, etc.) that make each operation unique and provides opportunity for distinction.  These tactical elements, processes, and procedures are teachable and repeatable in a pretty exact fashion.  In fact, many agencies have a portion of their employee performance review devoted to how well each employee executes on their ability to follow procedures as well as the outcomes achieved.

Earlier I indicated that management was about doing things the right way and that leadership was about doing the right things.  Leadership is the glue that determines how successful we will be because it not only determines what the right things are, leadership determines who the right people are to execute the plan.

Determining who the right people are and then successfully working with them to insure maximum results, a great place to work, and a great public reputation are difficult to teach. The difficulty comes because much of what you are trying to teach (i.e., about organizational thinking, teamwork, people’s needs, communication, trust, accountability, and even respect, etc.) are elements that do not come naturally to most of us. Further difficulty occurs because these elements are never present in the same proportion of need at the same time by the same people. You are not only teaching the “how’s” of all of these elements, but how they work in the three dimensional puzzle of leadership.

By nature we live in our own world, with all our thoughts, emotions, biases that we created while we were growing up. To operate successfully in the world of leadership we must learn to overcome “our own world” in order to operate in the larger world of leadership. The degree to which people are able to overcome, or deal with their own world in the process of growing as a leader, is a function of their awareness of themselves and their motivation to be a leader.

The awareness is the piece that can be difficult to teach. The most success I have is not in teaching it, but helping to create an atmosphere and a number of self-awareness questions (i.e., How is this helping or hurting you meet your goals? How do you believe others saw your actions? If you do what you are contemplating how will that help your relationship with your team, the other person, etc.). Providing the time and encouragement for people to explore more about who they are and what it takes to be a good leader can create the dynamic tension within the individual to motivate them to make the changes that will improve their ability as a leader.

So, are you born with the leadership gift, or can you learn it? My bias is that those born with certain tools of personality and are motivated to use them in leadership have an advantage. With that said, many of the tools, and much of the motivation that will be necessary for success can be achieved in a setting that creates, supports, and encourages the risk that comes with increased personal awareness and change.

And Brad? Brad did earn the opportunity to supervise other collectors. And for a time he was good at anything that required his analytical ability and his ability to explain process or procedures to the collectors. Ultimately, Brad could not overcome those elements that he perceived to be in his way to earning more money. He never could see his collectors as being the path to his success rather than a roadblock. What would it take Brad, or if you are like Brad, you, to see people as a path not an obstacle?

by Jim Struck
as published in ACA International’s Management Trends