The Mo Green Question
After his considerable professional and academic credentials were painstakingly extolled during his introduction by the firm's president, a newly hired director of research both astonished and endeared himself to his future employees by slowly tearing his lengthy resume into small pieces and throwing them in the air. "It doesn't matter what's on a piece of paper," he said. He removed his coat and symbolically rolled up his sleeves before continuing. "What really counts is what gets done and how we work together!"
Unlike the theatrical research director, Mo Green, the new superintendent of Guilford County Schools who begins work Monday, has no need to discount his formal educational credentials because he doesn't have any. The currency of the realm for large-system school superintendents is a combination of a doctorate in education and a nomadic history of working for increasingly larger systems. For better or worse, the appointment of Green, a lawyer with only two years of experience as an educational administrator, breaks set.
Can Green bring the requisite wisdom, perspective and leadership without having gone through the traditional experiential and credentialing hoops, or do the hoops actually block innovation and creativity by promoting adherence to a narrow set of paradigmatic constraints?
Applying the question to other officials, does Greensboro Police Chief Tim Bellamy really need his background in law enforcement or would he be more innovative without it? Is Mayor Yvonne Johnson actually handicapped by the experiential blinders of her past public service? Is High Point University President Nido Qubein successful because he is not shackled by the traditional academic conditioning of many university presidents?
Disregarding all the peripheral hyperbole, the core issue in our presidential election comes down to the same question. Is "insider" John McCain's experience a help or a hindrance and is Barack Obama's "outsider" status an asset or a liability? To a great extent, the answers depend on whether we want managers or leaders and, to a lesser extent, the situational ability of our public servants to play both roles.
Leaders and managers perform related, but very different, tasks. Leaders challenge the status quo, mobilize commitment to a galvanizing vision, and inspire us to be our best. Managers assure compliance with rules and standards and adherence to plans. Psychologist Warren Bennis sums up the difference when he writes that "Managers do things right and leaders do the right things." The roles overlap and effective organizations need both.
Public servants differ in their orientation, and few can consistently and flawlessly play both roles. The presidency of Jimmy Carter provides a political example. He campaigned on change leadership but seemed to be hard-wired to a micro-management orientation and, as a result, did not meet his or others' expectations.
The lesson for the boards and commissions that appoint our public servants is to understand the difference between leadership and management and select accordingly. If they want a leader, they need to get out of the way, expect the status quo to be challenged and be patient with the "messiness" of change. If they seek consistency, efficient administration and a high tolerance for their own micro-management, they will only promote mutual frustration if they select a person with a strong leadership orientation. Too often they are not really clear on what they want and engage in a form of bait and switch, asking for a leader but not really willing to tolerate true leadership behavior.
I fear that Mo Green will find himself losing ground on a slippery slope at the bottom of which lies a continuation of the bureaucratic swamp of political correctness, racial tension and mediocrity that constitutes much of public education today. The jury is still out -- in fact it has yet to convene -- as to whether a school board comprised of many single-issue, one-dimensional members can actually conjure up the tolerance to let him lead. Even if this happens it is by no means clear that Green has the very rare ability to overcome the training and skills that got him where he is -- legal and analytical - and function as a leader. If he is unable to provide true leadership, the school board is spending a quarter of a million dollars a year of our money in salary -- not counting the cost of a deluxe benefit package that exceeds most in the private sector -- on a high-level bureaucrat with no educational credentials whom we neither need nor can afford.
Green's appointment, however, does frame an opportunity. Our public service employees are over-managed and under-led. Perhaps it is time for all managers to tear up their resumes, roll up their sleeves, escape the false security and illusive power of stifling bureaucracy and get on with the task of leading our city and county into a brighter future.
David Noer (dnoer@elon.edu) is the Frank S. Holt Jr. Professor of Business Leadership at Elon University and an honorary senior fellow at Greensboro's Center for Creative Leadership. He writes a monthly column for the News & Record on leadership, organizational behavior and community issues.
