MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Managing action - leadership
everything on the postal side so a lot of his time is involved on
that and I don't think that made them happy, although they can
speak for themselves. When he did get involved in the
administration, it was in the minutiae. It was very personalised,
spasmodic, depending on the direction of the winds, the size of
the moon, his hormonal balance at any one time.(Interviewee G)
Others have different ways of expressing this:-
Well, there is a difference between managers and leaders, I
suppose. I try to see myself as much more a leader. My job is
to give the strategic direction of the union, i.e. to set out, to think
a bit further than the day to day managing the office, shoving
paper and things like that. That's very much the job of the
leader of the organisation, to have a bit of strategy, have a bit
more thought. A little bit like being a football manager, is the
best way I can think of it. You know, at the end of the day, you
are responsible for the day to day decisions in the same way as
poor old Peter Reid has found out this week, you can be sacked
as well. I can be sacked, at the end of my term of office. So
much more about giving direction, giving strategy and also
getting people to think differently than the way they are thinking
and moving out of things that are not working into things that
should make the organisation work better. So I see it very much
as a leader. But also as being a bit of an organiser, in terms of
how we organise our time and place (Interviewee B)
The situation is not helped by the public perception that anyone senior
in a trade union is a ‘leader’ and this term usually being defined by
reference to negotiating roles, as one manager mentioned earlier:-
I think some of them see themselves as the leader and they've
got there and the rest of you jump because I'm the leader. They
see the leader bit, they don't see the manager bit. So I don't
think many of them do. (Interviewee G)
The boundary spanning nature of the role, at least at very senior level
is expressed in a number of different ways:-
It's a bit like being Prime Minister. The Prime Minister hasn't got
a job. He has got every job. So if there is a war in Iraq he
doesn't say to Jack Straw -- you're foreign relations, get on and
deal with that. And similarly if there is a strike in the Post Office,
a big one, I have got to have an interface at some point at some
stage, and similarly with BT although that is less problematic.
(Interviewee B)
You have to be focused on the organisation, to innovate, to find
new ways of doing things, you have to keep moving forward, you
can't stagnate, you have to accept that your staff being your
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