“it turns out that tribes, not money, not factories, that can change our world, that can change politics, that can align large numbers of people. Not because you force them to do something against their will. But because they wanted to connect.” – Seth Godin
People often mistake leadership and management as the same thing, but in essence they are very different. The main difference between the two is that leaders have people follow them, while managers have people who simply work for them.
Leadership is about motivating people to comprehend and believe in the vision you set for the company and to work with you on achieving your goals.
While management is more about administering the work and ensuring the day-to-day activities are getting done as they should.
For a small business owner to be successful however, they need to be both a strong leader and manager to get their team on bord with working towards their vision of success.
Therefore, leadership and management must go hand in hand. Even though they are not the same thing, they are closely linked and complementary to one another. Any effort to separate the two within an organisation is likely to cause more problems than it solves.
For any company to be successful, it needs management that can plan, organise and coordinate its staff, and leaders that are inspiring and motivating them to perform to the best of their ability.
“Leadership is about inspiring your team; management is all about the planning.”
But, what does a leader do?
Leaders have a tendency to praise success and drive people, whereas managers work to find faults. A successful leader paints a picture of what they see is possible for the company to achieve and works to inspire and engage their people in turning that vision into a reality.
Rather than seeing individuals as just a particular set of skills, they think beyond what they can do and activate them to be part of something much bigger.
A leader in business is well aware of how high-functioning teams can accomplish a lot more when working together rather than individuals working autonomously.
How to understand the difference?
Both managers and leaders need to understand what they have to do and to achieve excellence in doing it, they need to comprehend the essence of the difference between them.
This is a matter of definition – understanding how the role are different and where they might overlap.
Managers, for example, will focus on setting, measuring and achieving goals by controlling situations to reach or exceed their objectives. Whereas leaders will focus on what those goals are and motivating people to achieve them.
You must think of one without the other to truly see the differences that exist between them as management without leadership only controls the resources to maintain.
Are you a manager or a leader?
There are many different types of leadership and management styles where different situations, groups, or cultures may require the use of different styles in order to set a direction and ensure it followed through.
One way to decipher which of the two you may be, manager or leader, is to count the number of people outside your reporting hierarchy who come to you for advice.
The more that do, the more likely is it that you are perceived to be a leader.
How to become a good manager or leader?
Mentoring and formal training can help employees utilise and use their leadership skills. According to research by the Chartered Management Institute, 90% of members who have completed a management and leadership qualification found the experience improved their performance at work.
There was also a “ripple effect” with 81% of those surveyed passed on their knowledge to colleagues.
However, celebrating individual leaders can also cause some to forget that it is never just one person running the show. Not everyone who is in charge of a team is both a leader and a manager. In order to have a successful organisation there needs to be a mixture of both and therefore celebrating all individuals who were a part of that achievement.
Many people are both a leader and a manager. Having managed people but along the way realised that is not possible to buy people to follow you down a difficult path then start to act as leaders.
The challenge then lies in making sure you are both leading your team as well as managing your day-to-day operation.
Those who are able to do both, will create a competitive advantage.
Allocation and Prioritisation
A key task as the leader of a high performing team is how you distribute and balance work across the members of that team. It needs to be done fairly and effectively.
Prioritisation is the activity is the process by which a set of items are ranked in order of importance. A critical step in the prioritisation process is looking at all of your tasks/projects and then comparing them to one another so you can create a list that is stack ranked from highest priority project to lowest priority.
And once you’ve done that prioritization process, you then need to look at how to allocate the resources you have to complete the tasks.
Work allocation needs to be done fairly because you want perceptions of equality and you want people to work on things they’re good at but also that they’re excited by.
Motivations and Resolution
Motivation
“Empowered employees work hard and are happier.”
For you to get the most out of the members of your high performing team, you need to empower them. Remember, on a high performing team, those team members are typically self-motivated, and they like being self-directed.
You need to understand how letting go of your agenda, creating space for them to flourish, and then accepting that there are different ways of doing things is going to bring out the best in your people.
Setting direction is critical for those people, but then as the leader, you need to get out of the way and let them run. Ideally you can set a direction for a team member and define the goal and the boundaries within which you can operate.
But it’s up to your team member to decide how you get from here to that goal. You’ll also need to accept, if you’re empowering your team member to take responsibility of reaching a goal, that there are different ways of doing things so they may do this in a different way than you.
Resolution
“I invite everyone to choose forgiveness rather than division, teamwork over personal ambition.” – Jean-Francois Cope
Conflict (including disagreement, a difference of opinion, concern, complaint, friction, etc.) is not inherently good or bad. It is an inevitable result of human beings being different and having different opinions. When this happens we need to resolve the conflict and doing this effectively can bring about a number of benefits including:
Earlier Problem Identification
Workplace conflict can shine a light on deeper problems that need to be addressed.
Better Problem-Solving
The best ideas and solutions flow from healthy discussions involving a diversity of perspectives.
Healthy Relationships, Morale and Commitment
The conflict that is denied, avoided, suppressed or handled ineffectively can harm relationships. On the other hand, if staff feel comfortable raising differing views, concerns or complaints and they see that these are heard and respected by their peers and management then their relationships with each other and with the business can be strengthened.
Improved Productivity
The conflict that is handled well will free up people to focus on their jobs rather than tensions in the office which will lead to higher productivity, efficiency and effectiveness.
Personal Growth and Insight
Conflictual situations can help us to learn more about ourselves and others.
So, for example, a team member may take an approach that you fundamentally disagree with and so there may be a need for conflict resolution. The measure of a good leader is being willing to step back and say, “I think you might be going the wrong way. Here’s a different way to think about it. But ultimately, it’s up to you how you want to proceed” as the goal is the same.
This fosters an environment where the leader is happy to be challenged and empowers his team (his unit) to make decisions on their own.
So as you think about the members of your team and trying to get the best out of them that you possibly can, take a minute and set a direction, think about the boundary conditions, and then let them go and see what happens.
