“Walking around management” is one of several core competencies that are featured in Tom Peters and Bob Waterman’s business classic, In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best-Run Companies, published by Harper & Row (1986). They had observed it during their study of Bill Hewlett and David Packard as they ran their eponymous computer company. However, leaders have circulated informally among those led at least since the Trojan War as portrayed in Homer’s Iliad. More recently, Shakespeare has Henry V do so before the Battle of Agincourt in 1415 and we know that President Abraham Lincoln often circulated among the troops during the Civil War as did General Dwight Eisenhower prior to the Allied invasion (“D Day”) on June 6, 1944.

It is a rare CEO in today’s business world who spends a majority of the time behind a desk. Most spend 25-30% meeting with customers and prospective customers and another 15-20% roaming their company’s headquarters or facilities elsewhere. Their visibility and accessibility — as with Odysseus, Henry V, Lincoln, Eisenhower, Hewlett and Packard — can help to achieve several important objectives:

o Increase morale among the workforce
o Obtain unfiltered feedback
o Be accessible to answer questions and address concerns
o Provide reassurances
o Nourish pride and enthusiasm

It is imperative, however, that walking-around managers have a sincere interest in frequent interaction with associates. They need to ask the right questions and then become an attentive listener. Most important of all, their body language and tone of voice must communicate respect and trust but also a sense of delight. If they don’t enjoy casual, informal conversations with associates, walking-around management is a mere charade; worse yet, an exercise in hypocrisy.