Performance-Leadership Wall

I don’t really know what the title should be. The idea I am saying is that there is this seeming wall between excellent (i.e., commendable) performance and transition to leadership.

As I mentioned previously, leadership requires different competencies from technical expertise resulting in excellent performance. It must be pointed out, if it is not so obvious, that leadership is performance in itself, and should also be assessed if it is excellent, satisfactory, or below par. Technical expertise will not result in competent leadership.

I am writing this post because my supervisor and I had a heart to heart talk on leadership, as I expressed my difficulty in my role as a supervisor. At the end of our conversation, I was thinking that I was not convinced that I should stay as supervisor.

Our talk began with me sharing to her that I don’t want to be a supervisor. I lost my value added position then that was being able to have a fresh eyes on things that we are doing, and my ability to add value to planning and monitoring work with my competency in information management. I also surfaced the idea that supervising people, which is the key responsibility of being a supervisor, was difficult given my continued role as a technical specialist. Furthermore, all these people’s outputs are contributions to a deliverable of the division.

I concluded that I need a supervisor for myself, and I am more effective as a specialist rather than as a supervisor. I am willing to lose the RATA.

My supervisor’s talk shared that she also experienced a similar stage earlier in her career. To my understanding (i.e., she did not say it this way), she liked doing something more simple and straightforward rather than endure the conflicting perspectives of management that we somehow have to reconcile.

She said other things, but for now, I think the key idea that made me think two days later was that performers seem go through a performance wall transitioning into leadership role.

In running, particularly in marathons and ultramarathons, runners experience “hitting the wall.” This figurative wall is that point of the run when the previously challenging distance becomes impossible. Patrick McCrann describes it pretty well (for me, that is):

"The wall" is defined as that period in a marathon when things transition from being pretty hard to being really, really hard. It is the point where your body and mind are simultaneously tested. It's the perfect intersection of fatigue and diminished mental faculties. Or as you most likely remember it, it's the exact point where all your pre-race plans went out the window. (Source: http://www.active.com/running/articles/how-to-beat-the-wall-during-your-marathon)

If you read my other blogs, you would know that I like joining marathons. Obviously, I join for fitness and not for the race. For this reason, I frequently compare work performance with running (as running is performance in itself).

My problem is when my supervisor role gets in the way of my own performance.

After a brief (but very belatedly, if I may say) assessment of my situation, I “learned” that I have two roles:

1) Technical specialist
2) Supervisor

Someone seems to think that by adding compensation, technical specialists would magically acquire the needed leadership and supervisory competencies needed to effect their respective team’s outputs. Furthermore, it seems that the agency or management is not cognizant of the reality that supervising people takes 100 percent of a supervisor’s time. If this is not so, either the deliverable suffers, or the supervision suffers.

So for people who craft outputs and supervise at the same time, adding P10,000 monthly to a person’s compensation will not make that person an effective supervisor. In case it is not clear, neither is it sufficient.

Going back to the “wall,” I guess I am at that point of my career when I see the wall before me. However, I must step back and think: Is this a wall in one race (transitioning from specialist to supervisor is natural step) or this is the end and I must transfer to another (I have to prepare differently as this is another race, similar to changing from road marathons to trail runs).

And so, I have to really assess this, give it serious time to think about how to go about it.

For me, I see leadership as a tool to effect organizational outcomes, similar to technical expertise. The two go together, and I don’t believe that one is more important than the other. Organizations need both technical experts who do the job and leaders who prioritize what needs to be done depending on the situation.

I probably said this before, already. Leaders, just like any other workers, need to be prepared. Not investing in them will cost the organization more in the immediate and long term.

Note: This post may be updated and refined in the future.

Challenges of a new supervisor

So it’s been like three months in this supervisory position, and I am not enjoying it.

The challenging responsibilities of a supervisor, for me, are addressing performance gaps, delegating appropriately, motivating, balancing management perspective with technical and people concerns, among others. I will just see if there are others.

As much as all supervisors want everyone on their team to be competent for the jobs they are supposed to do, this is not always the case. Competency gaps or misalignment may have been the result of problematic hiring process, age, reorganization, or other reasons. Whatever reasons these may be, and usually these are beyond the supervisor’s control, it is still the supervisor’s responsibility to deliver results.

Trained as I was in classical military training methodologies, my default corrective mechanism is the “sandwich method.” This is done by the supervisor providing instruction on how to address the performance gap, followed by a punishment (usually a physical activity), then the supervisor repeats the lesson on how to do the task correctly.

Of course, this is addressing a performance gap, which is addressing an immediate concern. The deeper concern is the competency gap, which is an altogether different matter.

Although the two may have a common root cause, like motivation.

Performance gaps and competency gaps can be addressed as these can be corrected. However, if the reason is motivation, addressing this is not as straightforward as either of the two.

As listed above, motivation is another difficult of being a supervisor. There are a number of theories on motivation, and identifying which approach to use for every employee’s unique situation is a challenge. Now how about if it is the supervisor that needs motivation, on staying or on delivering according to standards.

Another challenge is on delegating. I read in an HBR article that people who cannot delegate may have some behavioral issues (I will post the link here in the near future), such as trust or conceit. If I have difficulty delegating but I cannot identify which of those two is the reason, are there other possible reasons?

Another challenge of being a supervisor is balancing how to address management prerogative vis-à-vis technical and people concerns.

Depending on the company or organization, supervisors usually are promoted from people who have demonstrated above-average skills and competencies in the skills they are hired for. As such, they have been proven themselves in doing their main work as specialists with wide and deep appreciation of their work and the work’s immediate context.

When they are promoted to supervise people, they are given a new role (note that I used “new” instead of “higher” role), frequently without adequate training. Management hopes that the learned higher technical competency would translate to ability to deliver on broader responsibilities, not considering that broader responsibility usually involves managing people, which was not a key requirement in the specialist role. Thus, high technical competency will be used to address a leadership competency requirement. Unfortunately, in my experience, this can lead to frustration to the new leaders as they are used to delivering results [on their own] while seeing team results, which they see as a reflection of their performance as supervisors, below their self-determined levels.

Also, I question myself: For a limited financial compensation for being responsible for deliverables, is it worth it?

Yes, I am stepping into the realm of extrinsic motivators. Honestly, I do not love being designated a formal supervisor. I would rather be a person recognized for my skills, including relating with people, coaching and mentoring them to help them deliver and provide them with adequate resources and work environment. I realize that all these things can be done with being a formal supervisor, but perhaps the organizational reality that makes this difficult is that one has to do all these things in the context of an organizational environment that has a conflict of philosophy on leadership, responsibility, and abused culture of completed staff work.

I understand that I may be being too hard on myself… I should allow myself some learning curve, and maybe I am just experiencing these difficulties because I am learning… but am I? I am just thinking of what the organization requires of my team…. And that organization does not care about learning and think about learning curve for those below them (in general, I mean).

I miss my previous weekends studying new things that, well, yes, would be helpful for work, but they are really of different disciplines. I like playing the role of a second or third perspective on proposed ideas or activities. I miss learning how to lead people from the experience of others.

My life has become way busier compared with how it was when I was working in my previous employer. But becoming a supervisor changed it from overly loaded to overly vague and unclear, trying to guess what the bosses want without guidance or with conflicting instructions from multiple authorities.

Time to check my blood pressure now…

New Bluetooth Keyboard and New Role

I am now typing this using my new bluetooth keyboard. .This is awesome. What would be the effect if the screen … the Android screen moved automatically to where the cursor is. This is really awesome. It can help me type long documents with my smartphone, which has Google Docs and Microsoft Word.
I can draft my blog posts here.

Now if I could just know how long the battery lasts…. It has a built-in battery which is rechargeable. But it doesn't have specifications in the box.

* * *

About four weeks ago, I have been designated officer in charge of our division. While I talked in the past about leadership, and I have had my brief stint in leadership position when I was in college, I tried my best to stay away from formal leadership designations. My ideal job and character in a bureaucracy was Jack Ryan, who has been described by his Chinese enemies in Tom Clancy’s Executive Order as nothing more than an assistant. They listed his positions prior to the US Presidency as Deputy Director for Central Intelligence and National Security Advisor, emphasizing that he was not ready to take on the role of leading his country and its military at the critical time as described in the book.

Of course, I am not saying I am like Jack Ryan. It’s just that I like the role of someone working behind the people who are seen in the cameras. I like to see the results of my work rather than be seen working. Partly, I must admit, I prefer that so that if I make a mistake, it would not be public as well.

I posted previously about what I expect of a leader. I did not expect that I would be formally assigned to such a position rather very soon. Sure, I thought of being a leader, but those were more of daydreaming instead of visioning.

I don’t want to be a leader. I am more of someone who wants to go into the details rather than thinking of the big things and what the end should be like (though of course, I have been trained that the end should be clear so that the strategy and means will be aligned with it). I thought of myself as a manager than a leader, an operations person than a commander. And between a task-oriented manager and a person-oriented supervisor, I thought of myself as the latter.

But perhaps the real reason I don’t want to be in a formal leadership position is because I have rather high expectations of leadership.

Sure, I also understand that leaders are people, prone to mistakes and every other human frailty. However, it is difficult for me to accept weakness and failure from myself. Sure, I could “forgive” other leaders so long as they do not fail on the more important aspects of leading people. But I feel like I would be a hypocrite if I would fail to deliver on those same critical aspects or dimensions when I get to such a formal leadership position.

You may notice that I frequently use the term “formal leadership position.” That is to recognize that leadership is not always formal. I supported my previous supervisor, who was in the position that I occupy now, by being the informal leader, ensuring that while tasks are carried out, the human dimension of the team is not forgotten. I also tried to be more of a team member rather than a team leader, but leveraging my technical expertise to be a coach and mentor to those in lower ranks.

There are so many new things that I would like to write about, as this new role is teaching me a lot of things – and by teach, I mean in the sense that while I previously know best practices in leadership, I see how different and difficult they could be to implement or execute when you are already there. Still, surely, my previous discussions with my supervisor when I offered alternative perspectives helped me cope with this new role. I hope that I could deliver without losing myself in the process.

Forgive me, this is a very spur of the moment post. I wanted to try the bluetooth keyboard that I bought and typed this whole post in the Microsoft Word app of my Android smartphone. So I have no opportunity to edit this into a very coherent text. I hope I could get back to this to refine this and add more thoughts.

Until next.

P.S. Kudos to Asus Zenfone 3, which I am using now. I switch between Microsoft Word and Chrome in writing this post.

Introvert Recharge - Lessons

I'm here at a coffee shop, supposedly because I want to have an "introvert recharge." It's what I call my quiet time to just be myself, try not think of anything in particular, just letting it go where the randomness of my thoughts take it.

I thought of imagining of how I would try to get the attention of a girl I like, but I have to stop myself as I would probably look stupid to other people. I am at a coffee shop, as I said.

I wanted to code, but that would require thinking, which is not what thoughtless wondering is about.

So here I am typing words, just reporting what my mind is thinking at the moment.

I've tried a brand of coffee that I have always liked. It's coffee shop where I used to work for like four hours or more to create a video of our college.

I am not sure if my retooling sessions are effective, as I have no immediate means to measure the effectiveness. I gave them an opportunity to practice what I've taught them. I'll see the results tomorrow, and I will listen to their way of thinking. I think it is a good way to understand how they look at our work and how their mind responds to (I think) new ideas that they will have to implement.

Supervising work of people is not new to me, but being officially and formally called one is a challenge. It's a learning experience from day 1. The experience I dread the most, I have to receive on my first day.

I really wish she would not go. But there's just nothing I can do. I wish I could. But I can't. I don't have anything to make her stay. If I were in her place, I would probably go, too.

It's unfortunate because I was hoping she would be able to help me with the cognitive tasks in our team. When she goes, I would have to carry that load alone. That pushes me to fast track training the remaining staff to share the load on monitoring work.

I have to study HTML and CSS. I think I could learn it on my own, but I have to admit that having classmates helps me learn faster.

What's the future like?

There is a risk to everything, including when you do not make risky decisions consciously.

I really I could pursue my goal of being a part-time faculty member. I wish I could teach at UP.

I have to review how to teach. I have to improve how to facilitate learning.

I will have to stop thinking now. Just let my thoughts go aimlessly.

I wish she would not go. I need her.

But I know I could go on without her. Just like what happened before.

Every experience is a lesson. I choose to stay and take the hard lessons.

Database Design: An Example

Previously, I wrote that I would post things I learned in my database training so that others can use them as they see fit. Considering my two days worth of inability to fix the loop in PHP in my performance management information support system, allow me to take a moment to stop coding and write about things I learned and how I applied it to the project I am working on. This way, I think I can initiate my intent of sharing my knowledge in learning while reviewing why I designed the database for my project that way.

First and foremost, information system development is and should be a deliberate and systematic process. I would not talk about that process as it is a combination of some system development things and management and organizational requirement, with the two needing to coordinate (and I mean TALK) closely if the organization intends to make the system really responsive to their requirements. If the two do not, don't expect the system to be helpful (i.e., easy to use, will do what the organization needs, and will be a SOLUTION INSTEAD OF BEING AN ADDITIONAL BURDEN).

Nonetheless, in the interest of sharing basic knowledge (which is my current level on the matter), here are the basic phases as proposed by Hoffer et al in their book, “Modern Database Management” 11th edition:

Project Development Phase	Purpose
Project ID and Selection	Develop a preliminary understanding of the business situation that has caused the request for a new or enhanced IS
Project Initiation and Planning	State business solution and how IS might help solve a problem or make an opportunity possible
Analysis	Analyze the business situation thoroughly to determine requirements, to structure those requirements, and to select among them competing system features
Logical Design	Elicit and structure all info requirements
Physical Design	Develop all technology and organizational specifications
Implementation	Write programs, build data files, test and install the new system, train users and finalize documentation
Maintenance	Monitor the operation and usefulness of a system, and repair and enhance the system

My project was personal so it did not go through phases 1-4 before going to phase 5. Rather, based on my understanding of the process (which, in case you missed it in the first paragraph, was about performance management), I dived into coding immediately. I knew that the project would be big and my basic requirements were not complete when I started it. And those considerations affected my database design, as I wanted it to be robust and scalable.

And with that, let's go now to data modeling.

A data model is, for our purpose now, how an organization views, uses, and processes data. As such, it is a biased view of how the organization sees things, as things are represented by data. Data modeling, then, “establishes the range and general contents of the database,” to “to create an overall picture or explanation of organizational data,” as Hoffer et al explained in their book.

For a clearer (and nuanced) example, let's take a look at performance management in the Philippine bureaucracy.

All government agencies report to many oversight agencies, and in performance management, this is not only to one agency. For those who do not know, below are three oversight agencies that any other agency reports to, with their corresponding reporting arrangements:

• Department of Budget and Management (DBM) – for organizational performance
• Civil Service Commission (CSC) – for individual performance of rank-and-file
• Career Executive Service Board (CESB) – for individual performance of managers

As you can see, performance of any one person will need to be aligned with all of these, somehow.

• DBM, through the Organizational Performance Information Framework, or OPIF, looks at the agency-level organizational performance, which is measured by how much an agency performs against its set Major Final Outputs, which are, among others, an agency's mandated goods and services. These MFOs are clearly identified in the national budget, as enacted by Congress (through the Performance Informed Budget, or PIB) through the General Appropriations Act (as such, each MFO has a budget, similar to marketing programs in the private sector).
• CSC looks at the performance management of the rank-and-file, which is currently measured in terms of accomplishment of each individual's performance contract, or PC. The PC, which sets the target (similar to the agency's MFOs), will be the basis of scoring their accomplishment during performance evaluation period. Currently, this performance management framework is called the Strategic Performance Management System (SPMS).
• CESB, through the Career Executive Service Performance Evaluation System, or CESPES, looks at the performance management of the bureaucracy's managers (i.e., Assistant Director and higher). Similar to the CSC's SPMS, the bureaucracy's managers craft a performance contract with their supervisors for performance targets, which will serve as basis for evaluating their performance at the end of the rating period, which is currently one calendar year (Compared to the CSC's SPMS, the period is usually six months, although an agency can have a shorter period of minimum 3 months or longer, up to a maximum of one year).

Here's a summary of the basic aspects of the three performance reporting systems:

System	Coverage	Performance Report Prioritized	Rating Period
DBM - OPIF	Organization	Accomplishment of agency-level, agency-nominated MFOs	Quarterly
CSC - SPMS	Rank-and-file employees	Accomplishment of agreed upon performance targets, which should be aligned with agency MFOs	Semestral, with provision for shorter (minimum of 3 months) or longer (maximum of 12 months)
CESB - CESPES	Managers	Accomplishment of agreed upon performance targets, which should be aligned with agency MFOs, with additional consideration for leadership and innovative outcomes	One calendar year

Based on this, you could see that if we are going to create an performance management information system, it should incorporate these considerations.

Additionally, the CESB created a hierarchy of performance objectives, as follows (based on Section 3 of CESB's Resolution 1136):

• Organizational [Strategic] Objective – broad statement of goals of the organization achievable in the medium term (3-5 years) in order to achieve its mission and vision.
• Office Performance Objective – enumerates the specific area/s of performance that is/are critical in accomplishing the strategic objective/s of the organization. Multiple Office Performance Objectives may contribute to an Organizational Objective.
• Ratee Performance Commitment – refers to the Ratee’s strategy or plan of action that he/she personally commits in order to contribute to the performance objectives.

In the Presidential Management Staff, we harmonized the three, in terms of performance objectives, by assigning its MFOs as CESPES' Organizational Objectives, and the CESPES' individual performance targets in the performance contract as the Ratee Performance Commitment. The Office Performance Objective is derived from clustering of related individual performance commitments, which are organized by groups or units to achieve common and related outputs or outcomes.

This harmonization was accomplished through the Results-Oriented Performance Management System, or ROPMS (the system which the PMIS will provide information support).

In terms of organizing the hierarchy of performance objectives, one can see that:

• The agency must have at least one MFO (for OPIF) / Organizational Objective (for CESPES).
• An MFO / Organizational Objective may have one or more Office Performance Objective.
• An Office Performance Objective should be aligned with only one MFO / Organizational Objective (this is for purpose of performance evaluation: we do not want one action to be rated more than once if it will belong to different MFOs).
• Each of a Ratee's (both rank-and-file and managers) performance commitments should be anchored on one (and only one) Office Performance Objective.

From a database management perspective, it would look like this:

Organizational Objective table

Organizational Objective ID	VARCHAR* 15**
Long Description	VARCHAR 500

*VARCHAR is one of the types of data used in programming and database design. It means variety of characters, I think. Among the other types are DATE, INTEGER (INT), and BOOLEAN.

**Number of characters are only for sample. For the Organizational Objective ID, it is only 15 because it is only an acronym of the long name indicated in the Long Description field.

Office Performance Objective table:

Office Performance Objective ID	VARCHAR, 15
Long Description	VARCHAR, 500
Organizational Objective ID (Foreign Key)*	VARCHAR, 15

*The foreign key is a “restraint,” which is setting a control in the system that in order for this office performance objective to be added, it must be connected to an existing organizational objective.

Ratee Performance Commitment table:

Ratee Performance Commitment ID	INT
Long Description	VARCHAR 500
Office Performance Objective ID (Foreign Key)	VARCHAR 15

As I mentioned before, when I dived into coding, I was aware that the system will have to be able to scale, meaning it should be able to accommodate additional requirements or conditions, and for more than the reasonably medium-term set of assumptions. Meaning, while the PMS' current MFO on decision inputs focuses on final briefing kits (eg., documents for the President's events or meetings) and action on requests from the public, these may change in the future, and the system should be able to accommodate it (just by changing the type of output to be counted).

As such, I have to modify the tables as follows:

Organizational Objective table:

Organizational Objective ID	VARCHAR 15
Long Description	VARCHAR 500
Date Start	DATE*
Date End	DATE*

*This is to indicate that an organizational objective may cease, however, for purpose of recording, we would keep it in the system instead of deleting it (which would corrupt the relationship structure as that would mean that office performance objectives may exist without organizational objectives).

Office Performance Objective table:

Office Performance Objective ID	INT, AUTO-INCREMENT*
Long Description	VARCHAR, 500
Organizational Objective ID (Foreign Key)	VARCHAR, 15

*Changed to INTEGER, meaning the system will assign the number. This will ensure that, upon nomination of an office performance objective, it would be unique. The AUTO-INCREMENT indicates that the system will increase the numerical value automatically.

It may also be noted that the office performance objective does not have time consideration. This is because its effective period is the same as that of its parent organizational objective.

Ratee Performance Commitment table:

Ratee Performance Commitment ID	INT
Long Description	VARCHAR 500
Office Performance Objective ID (Foreign Key)	INT*

*Changed the data type into integer, as it must be the same as the one it references.

The above tables, which are called physical database design, should be able to cope with changes in an agency's MFOs. Also, considering that the office objectives are separated from the office themselves, an organizational restructuring would not require changing of the code (assuming the user interface sets   up a facility of reassigning office objectives, which I did for my project). Below image shows how the three tables relate:

However, if the DBM or CESB changes the way it looks at performance and budgeting (i.e., changes the OPIF altogether), it would require a major review and updating of the system and the database structure.

The above narrative, hopefully, demonstrates sufficiently how database design works (Note that this is only for one aspect of the process. Your own process would most probably have more than one, each of which you have to consider for relationship with other tables, databases, processes, and user requirements.) It requires an understanding of the business' requirements and look at its operations, including the information and data required for and gathered from these operations, not just a pure technical appreciation of database design or programming. As such, managers should also take the time to understand this (not the technical level, but an appreciation for the opportunities and limitations) to make informed decisions and not be limited by the technical people's say so.

Final Note: Above narrative is a simplified version of the tables. For security reasons, some additional columns, reflecting additional organizational requirements, have been removed.

Freedom of information - from those that provide us information

I am thinking that members of the press or the media being mandated (as in by law) to file their Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN).

While I am not saying that they should be paid by the government (meaning, us, the public), I am proposing the idea for the simple reason that their work has a big stake in shaping public policy as well as government action. I think that those who criticize the government, or any of its branches, should have the confidence to present itself as aboveboard and serves no particular interest. Or, if they do, then we should be aware of it.

There is no such thing as objective media. Everyone has an interest (Yes, even me!). What's important is that we, the public as their (the Executive, the Legislative, the Judiciary, and the Press), should know their interests, which the basic info can be gleaned at through the SALN.

Of course, it's not just submitting SALN, they should be covered by the same provisions. That you file all your financial interests, and misrepresentation will be considered an offense against Republic Act No. 6713, or the "Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards of Public Officials and Employees,"

They have the power. They should be given the same level of responsibility.

Why shouldn't they. They demand transparency. Shouldn't the same be expected of them, who claim they are the bastions of democracy? How do we know that those who guard it are not wolves in sheep's clothing?

Just another perspective.

Purpose

Just a short post that I hope to be able to expand later. I feel that the lack of a strategic/long-term purpose affects the quality of my outputs and work.

I can be self-driven, but the problem is that the unit itself seemingly lacks purpose and mandate. Everything is based on preferences.

That lack of mandate allows our inputs to be questioned, as if we do not know what we are doing. Maybe, they are correct.

A system is required. A purpose has to be established and institutionalized.

Time to run.

On Leadership

I am not a leader. My limited knowledge of leadership is based on my experience as a cadet officer in Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC). So let me make it clear at the onset that my writing is just based on my own limited experience, and that this is more of a documentation of my learning or insight rather than a prescription on how to be one.

Leadership demands inspiration. I agree with John Maxwell's test of leadership: If nobody's behind you, you are no leader. You are just taking a walk.

Leadership does not come from mandate. It comes from respect, which usually comes from genuine care for the people you lead. If you want to lead, you have to care.

Leadership is a relationship (duh!). Leadership is not about legal authority, it's about people's trust in you.

Leaders put the needs and welfare of their people first, before one's own. Even in battle, the leader leads, not just commands.

In relation, a leader recognizes that it is best to motivate rather than command. A command is based on legal authority, a motivated action is based on a shared goal and values.

Leadership is about making tough decisions. You may consult, you may get inputs, but in the end, you have to make the call.

And in relation to that, leadership is about responsibility. Some organizations punish individuals who make wrong decisions. We cannot fault organizations for that as they have their purpose. Nonetheless, the leader has to make that choice, and take the responsibility for its outcome. The leader does not pass the buck.

The leader leads. Before a leader commands, and for me, before a leader should command, the leader does what he tells others to do. Don't expect other people to stick their necks out for something that their leader would not do.

The leader does not blame his or her own action to external forces. The choice is the leader's own.

The leader knows his goal and methods, and communicates these to his people. His people are not blind nor left alone wondering what will happen next.

Just my limited thoughts. I usually tell people I do not want to get promoted to leadership position, but I want to help people be their best.

Are these my expectations of leaders, in general? Yes. But I also know that leaders are humans.

And perhaps, that's my last. Leaders are humans. They think, they feel, they guess, and they struggle which ones of these will give him the proper input to have the best outcome... for his people, his flock.

Note: Forgive me for being not gender neutral. Leadership is not based on gender. All male pronoun references apply to all genders.