As I did yesterday, I turn once again to SmartBrief on Leadership, which now points to an article on Jack Welch in the San Francisco Chronicle as a "must-read."

In summarizing the Chronicle piece, SmartBrief pulls out Marc Davis' statement, "[F]or any business -- gigantic, medium-sized, modest, or small -- the management philosophy of Jack Welch may be applied equally."

Really?

While four of the five Welch management strategies Davis covers are good, and can be applied in any size business, I would disagree that his #2 ("Lead a company, don't over-manage it") is just as effective in a small setting as in a large one.

Winning workplaces has long said, based on our own employee engagement research and other workforce effectiveness studies, that small and midsized businesses' "secret sauce" are managers and even CEOs who lead and manage, taking every opportunity to boost employee leadership development.  While time intensive and impactful on the budget, the payoffs of this approach are many, almost always outweighing the investment:

• Greater commitment and engagement
• Lower absenteeism and presenteeism
• More innovation
• Longer employee tenures
• Lower turnover (and lower recruiting costs)
• Higher customer satisfaction, mainly due to customers dealing with the same employees for longer periods

Need more proof that Jack Welch might not be the best management model for small businesses?  Click below to read our take on his arguments that...

• The bottom 10% of employees should be cut each year
• There's no such thing as work-life balance

Care to push back?  Please do so by leaving a comment below.