In my childhood, they used to sell 'Painting by Numbers' kits.
Perhaps they still do. Someone with no artistic ability could use
one of these kits to produce a reasonable attempt at an oil
painting.
The important thing to remember about these kits is that they
did not make you into an artist.
Now, I don't mind that people without any artistic ability can
create reasonable paintings. If it brings a few more items of
relative beauty into the world, why not? What worries me is the
number of 'Leading by Numbers' kits that must have been sold in
the past few years.
Vision by Numbers
In the good old days, a leader would have vision. He (it was
usually a 'he' but the same applies to all the female leaders) -
he wanted to go somewhere, and if he convinced enough other people
it was a good place to go and they would do better by going with
him, then off they went: something changed.
These days, leaders seem to behave more like schoolboys. "Okay,
I'm the leader. Now, tell me what we are going to do." Of course,
they don't say it quite like that. It's more like "Set up a focus
group to tell us what we need to campaign about" but it comes to
much the same thing in the end. Leadership has become a management
function. You don't need to believe anything or have anything of a
vision, as long as you can set up a focus group and apply the
results.
Directing by Numbers
A more serious problem arises because leaders don't
understand what they are leading. So they ignore the process, and
set some targets for the outcomes. They give those targets to the
people below them, and expect them to be achieved. This generally
manages to pass as leadership if the targets are halfway sensible.