Rear Admiral Grace Hopper
A delightfully sweet friend of mine submitted this for publication. I was quite impressed with his initiative, his kindness, and his desire to do something helpful for a Lady. He is, most definitely, a very good boy. ~ Lady Julia
I was thinking about a quote that Rear Admiral Grace Hopper made on “60 Minutes” about managers and leaders. She was asked, “What is wrong with American business?” Her reply was, “The concept of management. You manage spreadsheets – you lead people”. Based on my experience this is so true.
I have seen a lot of posts on your site where guys are expecting their women to make them do this or perform this way. I think this is the managerial type approach. “Put this on, do this, perform this way”…. There is nothing wrong with this. The little rituals, props and role playing we engage in can be great fun and add spice to any relationship. But I think these things can get in the way to what a female led relationship should and can be. Or any relationship for that matter.
I hate being managed at work. I especially hate to be micro-managed. Micro-managing implies a lack of trust or respect. I think people believe that if they control the little behaviors and actions they can control the person or situation. Ultimately I think this type of behavior is doomed to fail.
The bosses I most enjoyed working for were leaders. They were also good managers, but they inspired people, not just ordered them around. They set good examples. A good boss will give praise easily and an occasional kick in the ### when needed.
I want to be led and not managed. I think there is an important distinction between the two. I cannot and will not follow someone I do not respect or who does not respect me. I want to follow someone who will inspire me to be a better person. To me it goes beyond following orders. I am a big boy. I know what is wrong and right. If I do the right thing I hope I am rewarded. If I screw up, it is my fault, not the person leading me.
Not to say I don’t screw up. I do. I am not perfect. And I have certainly benefited from the guidance and help of strong women.
This is also not to say I don’t like being directed by a woman. I do. It just means I want to be inspired and led not managed.
~
Grace Hopper factoids for those interested (in part from Wikipedia.com):
It is impossible to do someone like Grace Hopper justice in a summary. Just one of her accomplishments is a career for most of us. But she was the mother of modern programming languages. I think she was the first or one of the first women to be given the rank of captain and then admiral in the navy. In fields usually dominated by men she was an exceptional leader.
Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper (December 9, 1906 – January 1, 1992) was an American computer scientist and United States Naval officer. A pioneer in the field, she was one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer, and she developed the first compiler for a computer programming language. She conceptualized and led the development of COBOL, one of the first modern programming languages. She is also credited with popularizing the term “debugging” for fixing computer glitches (motivated by an actual moth removed from the computer). Because of the breadth of her accomplishments and her naval rank, she is sometimes referred to as “Amazing Grace”. The U.S. Navy destroyer USS Hopper (DDG-70) was named for her.
While she was working on a Mark II Computer at Harvard University in 1947, her associates discovered a moth stuck in a relay and thereby impeding operation, whereupon she remarked that they were “debugging” the system. Though the term computer bug cannot be definitively attributed to Admiral Hopper, she did bring the term into popularity. The remains of the moth can be found in the group’s log book at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.
The famous quotation “It’s easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission” is often attributed to Grace Hopper.
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I have just happened on you blog and I am very impressed with your style and grace.
Ray
This essay says so well what I have been trying to put into words since I first started visiting the Enchanted Realm. My bosses have been women for as long as I can remember, thirty years as a nurse and before that in office environments. Those who were leaders and teachers rather than managers always inspired my loyalty and my desire to please them, and enriched my life in the process.
I am so happy I found this place, Lady Julia.
Thank you, Ray :) It’s nice to meet you. Welcome to my blog.
I thought he did an extremely good job at quickly and efficiently making his point. Nicely done :)
And Rumiboy – I’m glad you did too as you seem like a really sweet person.
“Leadership is action, not position.”
I read that in a Fortune Cookie recently. Not really a fortune, is it? But it seems germane in that being a leader is something that you must do– You are not a leader simply because you hold a certain title.
What a good thing to draw attention to, the difference between management and leading. Thank you. Management seems to me to be the process whereby people are controlled into doing something whether they want to or not, whether they understand it or not. Leading seems to be the process where by people are encouraged to do something they might not want to do at first, but later do want to do and want to understand. Management does not have to involve any faith on the part of the followers but leading does. So many dommes seem to strive for management and so many subs seem to strive to be managed. Although with informed consent management could be perfectly acceptable, it seems as if with informed consent leading could be above and beyond, (to put it in military terms in honor of Admiral Hopper). How much heart does management require? How much does leading require?
Arafin
For those interested these are the links to her famous 60 Minutes interview. It is in two parts. She talks about leadership in part 2.
What a strong, smart, confident, and warm person. I wish I had met her personally.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sUT7gFQEsY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVMhPVInxoE
Thank you for those links and also for a really great article :)
[...] In recent reading about leaders and managers I realized they do many similar things (planning, organizing, coordinating, controlling, staffing, and motivating), but they do them from different places. ‘Leader’ comes from an Old English and Germanic verb ‘laedan’ meaning “to guide,” “to cause to go with one, or lead,” “to travel,” “to go,” and as a noun “the one in first place”; leaders stand in front of people and inspire them, causing them to go. But ‘manager’, from Latin ‘manus’ meaning ‘hand’, stands behind people and manipulates (same Latin root) them; a manager uses people to accomplish things, and management is the ‘handling’ of laborers and “the art of getting things done through people” (Mary Parker Follett). When people buy into a vision together, someone leads – when people are a resource to buy, someone manages them. [...]