In this mini series of articles that I am writing about entrepreneurship, today I am writing about leadership. To be more precise, about the difference between a leader and a technician and also, how to be one or the other and perhaps having a healthy mix, if such a thing is even possible, but I will leave that to each one of my readers to make that call after reading and internalizing this article.
In the book “The E-Myth” by Michael Gerber, I came across the term, “The Technician.” According to Mr. Gerber, and I am paraphrasing, the technician, is the person who knows the technical aspect of the business. As an example, if your business is an auto repair shop, there’s a high probability that you are a mechanic and also that you perform some if not most of the repair work yourself. Also, keep in mind that if you are a technician, with your own business, you have a strong leadership vein running inside you! Here’s why.
A technician, is normally fascinated with getting the work done and performing to the best of his abilities, but here is the clash of titans; when the technician becomes ambitious and decides to open his own shop. In a future series, I will discuss how healthy ambition is and how detrimental greed is. Back to the subject at hand, when the technician decides to open the shop, most likely, the technician will be… well, for lack of better words, the technician, the worker. But also, let’s keep in mind that he is also now the leader.
The leader is the visionary. If I expand on the example of the auto repair shop owner, while he was working for somebody else fixing vehicles, inside the technician’s mind (actually now thinking like a leader), he/she was dreaming about the new business, and how he/she would do things differently if he/she owned the business. The technician, now the leader, suddenly becomes aware that a force stronger than themselves is driving them to have a vision, to act on that vision. When the leader, does act on this vision and the new auto repair shop opens its doors for the first time, things seem very promising. The first couple of clients come in and the technician quickly gets to work to please the customers. Before too long, the leader realizes that the vision is “stuck” and the business is not moving in the direction that the leader had foreseen. Many times, not even the leader realizes why, and often enough is because to realize what is going on, the leader in you has to take time to explore why the business is not moving at the expected pace or in the wrong direction. Time is precious, I understand, but also is the business opportunity that you have in your hands. After taking the time to explore why the business may be stuck, only then, one would come to grips with the reality of things.
Next week we will continue expanding on this subject including the internal battles between the leader and the technician. Also, we will discuss some of the misunderstandings where we think we are leading but instead we are managing. Stay tune…
