Every Style Has Its Flaws
“THE TALENTED EMPLOYEE MAY JOIN A COMPANY BECAUSE OF ITS CHARISMATIC LEADERS, ITS GENEROUS BENEFITS, AND ITS WORLD-CLASS TRAINING PROGRAMS, BUT HOW LONG THAT EMPLOYEE STAYS AND HOW PRODUCTIVE, HE IS WHILE HE IS THERE IS DETERMINED BY HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH HIS IMMEDIATE SUPERVISOR.”
― MARCUS BUCKINGHAM, FIRST BREAK ALL THE RULES
Management is problem-oriented, and Leadership is opportunity oriented. You cannot teach someone to have a vision, you either have it or do not, but all leaders have a vision. This vision would be the distinguishing difference between both roles.
Leaders’ characteristics are the same as entrepreneurship. They are working with significant uncertain elements and can be systematic in chaos toward the future vision. Their shortcoming is nitty-gritty details, whereas managers tend to thrive in operational excellence.
Managers and Leaders are vastly different since Leaders are outward-facing, looking for new opportunities. Managers are inward-facing, acting as a catalyst to make talent into valued products and services as quickly as possible. Manager’s flaws are they are resistant to change as they optimize the current system. It is harder to let go of a process you nurtured. In hard times, the only way to survive is to get each employee to become as productive as possible. During these times, managers shine.
THE LEADER’S JOB IS TO ANTICIPATE CRISES –PETER DRUCKER, MANAGING THE NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION
If you ever pit a manager against a leader, the leader will draw the manager’s map to follow every day of the week. Managers come from the word manage and tend to manage people, money, and time. Leaders come from the word lead, which implies there are followers. That is why they lead into the future.
Pundits touting today’s fast-paced businesses, self-service attitude, and constant re-engineering make it seem like Managers are no longer needed. Replacing managers appears to be conventional wisdom, but this is further from the truth than the pundits predict.
The manager drives employee engagement and productivity. The best Managers do the following four things well.
- Select talent (quite different from finding smart and skilled persons)
- Set Expectations and Goals
- Motivate
- Develop
The vital point to note is that every organization needs a blend of managers and leaders to preserve operational excellence yet stimulate progress. Jim Collins, Author of “Good to Great” and “Built to Last,” refers to this as “Preserve the core and stimulate progress.”
Many thought leaders make it sound like one style is better than the other. What is important is to figure out the best ratio for your organization and find people whose personality matches the style needed.
LEADERS VS MANAGERS COMPARISON TABLE
| MANAGERS | LEADERS | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Born out of Political Entitlement by being politically savvy. | Born out of a Decision to Lead by personal initiative and purpose. |
| 2 | Handed objectives. The goal is to optimize time, talent, and money to achieve quality outcomes aligned to the objective. | Decide objectives. The goal is to Influence Change for a positive outcome. |
| 3 | Alert and Manage Problems. Focused on removing obstacles. | Prevent and Reinvent Problems. Focused on gathering resources of talent and money. |
| 4 | Has Formal Authority (primary power) | Has Moral Authority (primary power) |
| 5 | Guide, Support, Motivate and Overlook team members | Participate, Lean In with team members |
| 6 | Proficient in Tactics and Science of People Management | Authentic Generosity and Natural in the ART of Caring |
| 7 | Operates for Glory, and Self Preservation | Operates for Inspirational Outcomes and thriving team members |
| 8 | Internal facing, Committed to Member Productivity and Metrics | External facing, Committed to Shared Vision and Spreading Ideas |
| 9 | Risk Adverse | Curious |
| 10 | Corporate Driven | Belief Driven |
No matter your style, if you are leaning toward a manager or a leader style, the most important thing you can do is accept who you are and GO, develop your people, develop your company for operational efficiency.
All Leaders and Managers have three C’s. Caring, Competence, and Character. Both ultimately translates to influence. When you are traveling on the competence pathway, you will experience the following transformations:
- Consumer: Join a community, attend, listen
- Participant: Share your knowledge and experiences, share consistently
- Contributor: Knows the ins and out of the community. You are building a profile.
- Active Contributor: A diamond in the rough to making great solutions.
- Top Contributor: Doing and Creating
- Community Influence: Leader in specific topics, valued opinion
The most important thing you can do is get involved, contribute, and help others become their best selves.
Level 5 leadership is a concept developed in Jim Collins’s book “Good to Great.” Level 5 leaders display a potent mixture of personal humility and indomitable will. They’re incredibly ambitious, but their ambition is first and foremost for the cause, for the organization and its purpose, not themselves. While Level 5 leaders can come in many personality packages, they are often self-effacing, quiet, reserved, and even shy. Every good-to-great transition in our research began with a Level 5 leader who motivated the enterprise more with inspired standards than inspiring personality.
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