Management vs leadership - a fresh look at an old chestnut
3852
Business > Management
Mar 1, 2007
Vernon Smith
Management vs leadership - a fresh look at an old chestnut
Some thoughts on leadership by
Vernon Smith
Command UK Ltd
Are you a leader or a manager?
Are you a leader or a manager ? can you be both?
I often ask delegates this question ? and follow it up with an invitation to recall some icon leaders from history (we always ban sports personalities from this!!)
Common leaders to be offered up often include:
Margret Thatcher
JFK
Richard Branson
Hitler!
And to be topical Alan Sugar
However if you then ask people to identify iconic managers from history ? again be sure to ban sports personalities! ? the well is often dry.
Why then is it easy to identify leaders and hard to recall managers?
Well maybe the answer lies in the nature of the two roles.
Time to generalise like mad??
Let?s place leadership and management on a continuum
MANAGEMENT LEADERSHIP
Managers focus upon: Leaders focus upon:
Being predictable Being visionary
Remaining stable Being dynamic
Keeping it safe Taking risks
Organising Driving change
Remaining dependable Breaking the mould
Running processes Exciting the team
Maintaining systems Innovating
Delivering consistency Searching new ways
Controlling Liberating
Playing with risk
We can see that the ?characteristics? of managers are very different to those of leaders.
It always causes a wry smile when organisations appoint managers and ask them to lead!!
In a nut shell, management is orientated towards controlling risk, promoting stability, organising and controlling resources to deliver agreed and predictable outcomes.
Leadership is anything but that!
Leadership is orientated towards risk taking, change and challenging the status qou. Leaders champion the future, then evangelise about how things can be ? they get you excited and committed to making that vision come to life. It?s very different to management.
To use a favourite story of mine?.
If we were in the jungle (not I?m a consultant get e out of here!) then the leader would be the person that climbs to the top of the tree to search out the way forward, they would be calling down, getting the troops excited, raising morale and describing the destination and the rough direction to get there.
However, that?s not much use on it?s own.
At the base of the tree, would stand the manager, listening to the ideas floating down from above (sounds familiar!). The manager, would organise the troops, rotating the trail blazers, counting out the machetes briefing everyone on their roles and the time frame, checking everyone understands, answering concerns, picking up on ideas ? in short organising.
All well and good, but how do you balance the two?
In essence every outstanding leader has a collection of first class managers around them to implement ideas and turn all that excitement into powerful, controlled action.
Are leaders then born or made? Well in true consultant style I would say both, wouldn?t I? For sure, there are leaders with natural ability and there are leaders who have struggled hard to develop their style and contribution. However, I would contest that there are very few high ability leaders that are also high ability managers (controversial!). There are high ability managers who have gone on to develop outstanding leadership, but they put aside their management head when they do so.
Of course, it?s a continuum so we all sit somewhere upon it and we can all shift with various degrees of training, pushing and personal awareness.
The critical thing to developing your leadership skills, is first of all to understand what it is and what it isn?t. Then understand yourself ? no truly understand yourself.
What are your values, your beliefs, your drivers and motivators. What type of people switch you on, what sorts of behaviour switch you off? What?s your attitude towards risk and change, do you like detail or blue sky concepts?..... The questions go on and on.
Truly understanding yourself is the key to delivering excellence in leadership. Self knowledge at this level is hard won and it may take years to acquire insightful self knowledge.
So are you a leader or a manager ? or are you both. Well of course the answer is yes to all of them. Understand yourself, understand your role and understand the expectations that are placed upon you and you have the foundation to be either. Try to be both and you may end up in trouble and your team will definitely be unstable.
If you would like to learn more about myself and what we do please visit some or all of our web sites:
leadership | leadership development visit our web site for a wealth of additional resources and ideas on leadership
All these web sites are in the early stages of development so keep visiting as they develop.
Thanks for joining in
Until next time,
Vernon
Deanna Mascle shares more inspiration and motivation at Official Wisdom at http://OfficialWisdom.com
Vernon Smith
Command UK Ltd
Are you a leader or a manager?
Are you a leader or a manager ? can you be both?
I often ask delegates this question ? and follow it up with an invitation to recall some icon leaders from history (we always ban sports personalities from this!!)
Common leaders to be offered up often include:
Margret Thatcher
JFK
Richard Branson
Hitler!
And to be topical Alan Sugar
However if you then ask people to identify iconic managers from history ? again be sure to ban sports personalities! ? the well is often dry.
Why then is it easy to identify leaders and hard to recall managers?
Well maybe the answer lies in the nature of the two roles.
Time to generalise like mad??
Let?s place leadership and management on a continuum
MANAGEMENT LEADERSHIP
Managers focus upon: Leaders focus upon:
Being predictable Being visionary
Remaining stable Being dynamic
Keeping it safe Taking risks
Organising Driving change
Remaining dependable Breaking the mould
Running processes Exciting the team
Maintaining systems Innovating
Delivering consistency Searching new ways
Controlling Liberating
Playing with risk
We can see that the ?characteristics? of managers are very different to those of leaders.
It always causes a wry smile when organisations appoint managers and ask them to lead!!
In a nut shell, management is orientated towards controlling risk, promoting stability, organising and controlling resources to deliver agreed and predictable outcomes.
Leadership is anything but that!
Leadership is orientated towards risk taking, change and challenging the status qou. Leaders champion the future, then evangelise about how things can be ? they get you excited and committed to making that vision come to life. It?s very different to management.
To use a favourite story of mine?.
If we were in the jungle (not I?m a consultant get e out of here!) then the leader would be the person that climbs to the top of the tree to search out the way forward, they would be calling down, getting the troops excited, raising morale and describing the destination and the rough direction to get there.
However, that?s not much use on it?s own.
At the base of the tree, would stand the manager, listening to the ideas floating down from above (sounds familiar!). The manager, would organise the troops, rotating the trail blazers, counting out the machetes briefing everyone on their roles and the time frame, checking everyone understands, answering concerns, picking up on ideas ? in short organising.
All well and good, but how do you balance the two?
In essence every outstanding leader has a collection of first class managers around them to implement ideas and turn all that excitement into powerful, controlled action.
Are leaders then born or made? Well in true consultant style I would say both, wouldn?t I? For sure, there are leaders with natural ability and there are leaders who have struggled hard to develop their style and contribution. However, I would contest that there are very few high ability leaders that are also high ability managers (controversial!). There are high ability managers who have gone on to develop outstanding leadership, but they put aside their management head when they do so.
Of course, it?s a continuum so we all sit somewhere upon it and we can all shift with various degrees of training, pushing and personal awareness.
The critical thing to developing your leadership skills, is first of all to understand what it is and what it isn?t. Then understand yourself ? no truly understand yourself.
What are your values, your beliefs, your drivers and motivators. What type of people switch you on, what sorts of behaviour switch you off? What?s your attitude towards risk and change, do you like detail or blue sky concepts?..... The questions go on and on.
Truly understanding yourself is the key to delivering excellence in leadership. Self knowledge at this level is hard won and it may take years to acquire insightful self knowledge.
So are you a leader or a manager ? or are you both. Well of course the answer is yes to all of them. Understand yourself, understand your role and understand the expectations that are placed upon you and you have the foundation to be either. Try to be both and you may end up in trouble and your team will definitely be unstable.
If you would like to learn more about myself and what we do please visit some or all of our web sites:
leadership | leadership development visit our web site for a wealth of additional resources and ideas on leadership
All these web sites are in the early stages of development so keep visiting as they develop.
Thanks for joining in
Until next time,
Vernon
Deanna Mascle shares more inspiration and motivation at Official Wisdom at http://OfficialWisdom.com
Write a Review
Add to My Favorite
Refer it to Friend
Report Article
Other links owned by this user
Some thoughts on leadership byVernon SmithCommand UK LtdAre you a leader or a manager?Are you a leader or a manager ? can you be both?I often ask delegates t question ? and follow it up with an invitation to recall some icon leaders from
Category:
Other links at Business > Management
Continuous process improvement is a systematic approach to achieve both incremental and breakthrough improvements in processes. This results in effective, better and more efficient ways in producing products or services.
Category:
For people who aren?t just casual surfers the amount of information online presents a daunting management issue. You want to bookmarks all the pages you find useful in your online research and business, but how on earth do you keep track of them all and
Category:
\"How do I get good people to listen to me?\"When's the last time you asked yourself that?Part of the reason marketers everywhere have such a tough time getting people to listen to them is because their audiences (i.e., us) don't believe them
Category:
The term "shipping case" encompasses all types of bags, boxes, totes, barrels, ISO containers, crates, trunks, and other vessels used for transporting materials from one place to another.
Category:
In early 1990, American President Companies started double-stack container rail service from Woodhaven, Michigan to Ford Motor Company's auto assembly plant in Hermosillo, Mexico. APC coordinates all the information, transportation, and inventory handling
Category:
Site Sponsor
Directory Statistics
Articles: 68285
Categories: 501
Yahoo Entertainment
