Reading notes for "The Motive", by Patrick Lencioni (2020)
Patrick Lencioni is an American author and business consultant. He has some interesting talks about effectively managing and running a team, which are available on YouTube, outlining his management philosophy.
In the “The Motive”, the central thesis is that much of bad management stems from a central misunderstand about the role of a manager: most people seek becoming manager as a reward, for a greater financial compensation or as climbing a step up in the corporate ladder.
Reward-driven managers, Patrick claims, can find themselves in leadership roles without ever thinking whether they'd like to do what a manager does.
The reward motivation is the wrong reason because, the author claims, it inevitably leads to poor results for the business, the manager and the people they lead. This happens because the reward-motivated leader avoids the hard parts of managing: advocating for their team, individual team member growth, and fostering team-building.
Patrick lays out the set of motives that, in his view, are the ones which motivate good leaders: a managerial role is a position of responsibility, often requiring an even higher level of sacrifice, demand, and accountability than a non-manager role.
A good leader, according to Lencioni's model, is the one which does what is right for the business and for the people he leads, no matter how uncomfortable or difficult this might be for them themselves.
Managing and leading ultimately is about serving others: it is about communicating a common direction, allowing the people you lead to perform at the best, while and at the same time, pushing them to grow individually.
In a healthy environment, rewards are a simple and natural lagging indicator of performance and results, not the goal in itself.