Leadership vs Management

What is the difference between leadership vs management? A manager’s job is to manage, right? Wrong! A good manager’s job is to lead, to inspire and empower employees to deliver for the company.

A great deal of the problems new managers face can be put down to managing and not leading.

Let me guess. You’re busy at work fighting fires, solving all those little problems that crop up each day. Desperately trying to get your own work done as well as making sure others can do theirs.

That’s micro-management, and over-control is one of the most common mistakes made by a new or novice manager. Some established managers also have this problem if they’ve never learnt any better.

Take Karen’s situation, a middle manager in charge of five people in a small bakery firm. The bakery is doing ok but Karen’s boss believes it could do so much better if they could find a more efficient way of working that gives individual team members more autonomy. That, in turn, would give Karen more time to consider new product lines and research further improvements.

Karen’s brief is to lead the team towards that goal, but since she has taken over her new recently promoted role, she has been bogged down with the day-to-day. She hasn’t even had time to think about any new product lines, let alone introduce any.

The truth is that as a new manager, Karen doesn’t know how to rationalize more autonomy for the team alongside keeping on top of everything managerially. Surely she has to watch and control what her reports do to ensure they’re doing everything as she would want them to?

Karen is managing rather than leading. She is so caught up with the idea of control that she fails to delegate and instead insists on knowing every single step that her employees take. She makes the all-too-common mistake of thinking that her job is to make sure they do their job; in short, she doesn’t trust the team to get on with it.

None of which, of course, leaves her any time to do the actual role she was hired to do – to look for new ways to boost the business.

The boss is unhappy, as is the team. Individual employees do not feel trusted to do their jobs, career development is stymied and initiative is discouraged. The only team building centers on private get-togethers, which inevitably deteriorate into sessions criticizing Karen.

The picture isn’t any rosier for Karen either. She is stuck, afraid to let go of her control but unable to move forward until she does. In the meantime, not only is she ruining team morale but she is also failing to utilize individual team strengths and empower autonomy.

If she is not careful, she may well lose her job. So what can Karen do to turn it all around?

The Solution

Here’s a concept that new or struggling managers often have a problem with – to truly be in control, to have more power, you must be prepared to give it away.

That’s right; the best leaders give away control on a daily basis. They give their staff the autonomy to take chances, to have ideas and to prove themselves.

The most successful managers help their team to grow, to learn and to become more effective. If you micromanage individuals to such an extent that you do their work for them, how can they improve? If they can’t improve, how can they grow?

Ultimately, you want to help them be as productive as you need them to be. And trust me, the rewards will reflect well on all of you.

Give them the chance to prove themselves. Be prepared to become the ‘problem giver’ – give them a problem to handle, don’t handle it for them. Have your staff share their plans with you so you can give them input, as opposed to the other way around.

Delegate is the crucial word here. Delegation allows you to take the broader view that managers and supervisors are responsible for.

If Karen, for instance, stepped back and rationally assessed the capabilities of each member of her team and gave them as much control as they could handle, she would free her own time up to concentrate more on her core brief – identifying new products and new ways of working.

She would also realize that the team can contribute in numerous ways that she probably never even considered; in fact, some of them may have expertise that Karen doesn’t have in certain fields, and trusting the team means she now has access to it.

Individual team members would be happier as well; every employee wants to be valued and inspired, to believe in the boss and to feel they are working together towards excellence. Do you really have a right to take that away from them because you’re afraid of letting go of your control? I’d say no.

Note that giving away control is NOT the same as giving away responsibility. If you’re in charge, you are always responsible for everything that happens in your department. Karen could still meet with the team regularly to be updated and to share concerns and inspiration, but now she is not standing at their shoulders, watching everything they are doing.

However, she shouldn’t make the mistake of being too hands off either. Leading means she still needs to give clear direction and guidance, to let the team know her expectations and goals, and to inform them how success will be measured. In short, she needs to ensure her directions aren’t too rigid, nor too flexible.

If you think that sounds like a delicate balancing act, you’re right. As a manager, you have to walk the fine line between micromanaging and giving too little direction. You want to lead employees and provide clear direction without destroying their commitment, engagement and empowerment. Master this challenge, and you’ll make a great leader.

Remember too that not trusting your employees will come across as micromanagement, with all the negativity that brings forth. Trust your employees and they will work hard to live up to that expectation.

Think of it this way: managing is primarily about maintaining the status quo. Leading is about inspiring people to be better and giving them the opportunity to achieve success.

 Some practical steps to be a better leader:

• Hire people that don’t need a lot of management. Instead, hire people that need leadership. You want people on your team that can manage themselves (Self Managers), that know how to prioritize things for themselves, how to get things done without someone looking over their shoulder and telling them exactly what to do.
• Take the time to know your staff individually and to discover what they like, are passionate about and are effective at. These are the areas where you can delegate or give autonomy fairly easily.
• Be inspired yourself. Tap into whatever inspired you about the job when you first took over the role; try to hold onto that excitement. Read about other leaders you admire. Being inspired yourself is the very first step to being able to inspire others.
• If there are certain areas where you really can’t bring yourself to loosen your control, start with other tasks or jobs instead. Start small and get used to the idea. Before long, you’ll be comfortable with the notion and can spread it around.
• Consider yourself a mentor to your team, and not just their manager. Be aware that refusing to delegate isn’t just harming your career prospects; it’s hurting theirs as well. Don’t pigeon-hole them; you really don’t have the right.
• Be prepared to listen to your team. As a manager, you are not expected to know everything, nor do you need to. The very best leaders are the people who find those who know the information they need and include them in the process; don’t be threatened by people who know things that you don’t know. Include them and use them instead.
• Don’t be afraid to ‘grow’ people to do your job one day. Yes, it’s understandable that you’re wary of allowing anyone to develop enough to replace you – after all, you have your own career to think about – but put your commitment to the company first. It’s the only way the business will continue.  The good news is that your efforts will be recognized and rewarded… and you’ll free yourself up to move onwards and upwards. After all, won’t it be easier for the boss to promote you again if there’s already someone able to step into your old role? The test of a great manager is not what he or she can do, but what the team can do without him.