The Four Ms of Management and Leadership

Today's post aims to take a look at what I've dubbed as the Four Ms of Leadership or Management. It stars an unlikely cast of characters that runs us from fifteenth century Italy, through sixteenth century Germany with a giant leap into the 1970s and 1990s in the United States. The cast was selected as icons largely due to their styles. There was absolutely no science involved in this effort, nor do I really know what I'm talking about.

The Four Ms are presented in linear order based on severity of the impact on those they are managing or leading.

Machiavelli, author of The Prince and chancellor of Florence in the mid-1500s, has spurned a type of ruling/management/leadership which bares his name. According to some random website I found, "An ideal Machiavellian rule is in one in which the ruler is both loved and feared. Since this position is nearly impossible to attain, the wise ruler should choose to be feared rather than loved. A ruler who chooses to be feared rather than loved is usually interpreted as an evil ruler."

We've all met this person. The best example I've got in my own life is a VP at a school I once worked at who would regularly yell and bang his fist on the table in meetings, demanding actions from his subordinates (and sometimes from people who were his equals). This created an atmosphere where he sometimes decreed absolutely ridiculous things that were brought to fruition simply because nobody could tell him no. It also resulted in lots of hurt feelings, disrespect, and general hatred of him across campus. I believe he knew all this and didn't care. I think he liked it. He was a classic Machiavellian example.


Melrose Place, that iconic television show from the 1990s is our second M. It involves trickery, general messing-with, lying, cheating, rumor-creating, and some low-grade meanness that sometimes masquerades as sincerity and care. There is always a caution around those who employ the Melrose Place model of management or leadership because you can never trust the person's actions or words. They might be sarcastic. They might tell someone something about you that you told them in confidence. They might set you up to fail. You never really know what might happen.

Most people hope they've left this one back in high school, but it's never that easy. We often find this in the workplace, especially when someone is threatened by us. We also might find this when the manager/leader has no real power themselves, since they are controlled by those above them, so they have no choice but to mess with those below them. Our guest post generator self-identifies within this category because as a public servant, he often finds himself in situations where messing with someone is the only option to get them to respond to direction and within his sector, largely filled with men, this is an acceptable option. He only uses this method with those who are sort of stupid (or at least acting stupid) and/or those who just flat-out deserve to be messed with.

Maude, of 1970's sitcom fame, appears in the third slot as an M. (This, by the way, gets the "Completely Random" award in our cast of characters, but stick with us.) Maude was groundbreaking when it hit the airwaves in 1972. Maude herself had already made history when she originally appeared as Edith Bunker's cousin on All in the Family because she was, according to Wikipedia, "a middle-aged, politically liberal, married woman living in suburbia, who embraced the tenets of women's liberation, always voted for Democratic Party candidates, strongly supported legal abortion, and advocated, albeit often clumsily, for civil rights and racial and gender equality."
She was blunt, to the point, and didn't really care who she upset by telling it like it was. But she was caring and loving and didn't alienate those around her with her.

This is my favorite type of management/leadership because it's the one I use. It fits my personality, gets results in the workplace, and earns me respect (more often than not). It has also resulted in misunderstandings and hurt feelings (of those who I've been too blunt with). It has led to my asking an employee who I was exasperated with "Do you think I'm magic? No. I got the information because I asked the right questions!" (That was a lowpoint in my career.) This style has allowed me to get to the bottom of problems quickly without alienating others. Our post generator sees this style as the compliment to his Melrose Placianism. He is blunt to a fault sometimes, even having recently asked a subordinate "Are you retarded?" (Granted, his workplace is the rare one that allows this type of question to be acceptable.) His use of this style allows him to call another subordinate recently and ask point blank for an answer for an unacceptable behavior, and when no satisfactory answer was provided, he said something along the lines of "You don't just do Behavior A. That sets both of us up to look like asses. It's unacceptable that you did it." And for the receiver of that information to have nothing to say.

Martin Luther had a distinct, moral belief system that required him to do what he believed right. He led with actions and written word in order to make the world around him a better place. After authoring the 95 Theses amongst other writings, he was brought forth to the general assembly of the Holy Roman Empire. After being asked if he was the author of the writings in question, which were inciting others to revolt against empire/church rule and whether he still stood by the content, he said, "Unless I shall be convinced by the testimonies of the Scriptures or by clear reason ... I neither can nor will make any retraction, since it is neither safe nor honourable to act against conscience." After a period of exile, he snuck back to continuing leading the Reformation. Again according to Wikipedia (which I'm allowed to use since this isn't a paper for class or my thesis), "For eight days in Lent, Luther preached eight sermons, which became known as the "Invocavit Sermons." In these sermons, he hammered home the primacy of core Christian values such as love, patience, charity, and freedom, and reminded the citizens to trust God's word rather than violence to bring about necessary change. The effect of Luther’s intervention was instantaneous. After the sixth sermon, Jerome Schurf wrote to the elector: 'Oh, what joy has Dr. Martin’s return spread among us! His words, through divine mercy, are bringing back every day misguided people into the way of the truth.'"

It is rare, these days, to find these leaders. But they are out there. These are the people who are thoughtful, and lead/manage with what's right and people's feelings equally in check. They are the ones who may appear weak to those who prescribe to one of the other three Ms, but who probably, albeit slowly and over time, make a real difference in a company, an organization or a school. They rule from love and care. I wish sometimes that I could employ more of this style in my work. Eisenhower once said: “You don't lead by hitting people over the head-that's assault, not leadership.” These people live by this.

There you have it. The Four Ms of leadership/management. I have a very strong feeling that this isn't making it into the mainstream leadership theory books anytime soon, but it was fun to think about and research. Which style are you?