A recent article in the NZ Herald highlighted the work of Robin Sharma, author of the bestselling book The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari.

It turns out that Sharma is something of a leadership guru, in a personal development kind of way. For example, the marketing for his latest book, The Leader Who Had No Title, recommends that you ‘get ready for an amazing new life’ once you’ve read it.

For all the hype, his opinion is pretty much on the money in my view. Sharma suggests that leadership is not about the title on your business card. Instead the competitive advantage of any business comes down to developing the leadership capability of everyone from the people in the mailroom to those in the boardroom.

Until recently the word ‘leadership’ in organisations had really only been applied to the top team; the Chief Executive and his or her senior management team. And clearly, strong skills in critical leadership competencies are critical at this level. What’s been missing has been an equal focus on the development of frontline managers as leaders.

True, in recent years there has been a real focus in many organisations to develop frontline managers as coaches. However, for all the effort there are several problems that still need to be addressed. Coaching and leadership are not the same thing. Coaching is only part of leadership. And there is plenty of evidence which suggests that many frontline managers are generally incompetent at coaching, when they actually get around to doing it.

Yet during the past 15 years I’ve repeatedly seen employee motivation and performance lifted significantly when frontline managers are developed as leaders, and then expected and supported to apply their new found leadership skills. Depending on the metrics involved I’ve seen anywhere from 20% performance improvement to in excess of 400%, while in many instances slashing employee turnover. In every case, there has been no change in the leadership capability of the senior managers in the organisations involved. Those gains have come about purely from the leadership activity of frontline managers and the second-level managers to whom they report.

While I’m not sure that any of the managers we’ve worked with have developed an ‘amazing new life’, I do know that many of them have created a very productive and satisfying work life for themselves and the people they lead.