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Leadership and management these two are often used interchangeably but are they interchangeable? Do we consider all managers to also be leaders and are all leaders managers? While the best managers will have traits of a good leader and visa-versa these two roles are not always synonymous. First thing we will want to do is to look at these roles individually and understand what the goal is each of these roles and how these roles interact with those around them.

Managers and Management

Management tends to a fluid role filling gaps as needed to make sure objectives and goals are met. In order to make sure goals are met managers often need to do following:

Planning: Since manager’s are tasked to accomplish a task within a certain timeline, resources, budget, and other constraints managers must have to ability to sit down and consider the tasks that have to be performed to accomplish the goal. These tasks also have to be accomplished within a certain time-frame and budget. This where you need to start answering the questions:

1. What steps need to happen in order to complete the tasks?
2. How much time does each step take?
3. How many tasks can be executed in parallel?
4. Which steps incur the most risk?
5. How can address each risk?
6. Are there any holidays, blackout days, or vacations overlapping with the schedule?
7. Can the team maintain the pace required for duration of the task / project?
8. Along many more questions..

While larger and long-term tasks / projects may have a dedicated or team of project managers, each manager is usually assigned or responsible for a particular domain which requires that manager to have deep understanding of their knowledge domain in order to deliver and plan for success.

Maintaining control and rationalizing: This can be a tricky one, as managers are responsible for delivering value to the business within the agreed upon timeline and budget a certain level of control must be maintained. Balancing how much control is required over the given situation without crossing a line is where it gets tricky. Managers that maintain too much control come off as micro-managers where-as having too little control are accompanied by its own set of issues. Some challenges includes:

1. Maintaining progress to meet dealines
2. Confirming people are where and when they need to be
3. Staying ahead of gates, blockers and issues
4. Operating within a budget

Setting goals and developing the team: As managers you are typically managing people and when you are managing people it is important to make sure goals and a progression is defined. Most people want to be challenged so that they can continue to grow.

1. Where does this team member see themselves in the future?
2. Is there a development plan to support this team member meet his future plans?
3. Is the goal clearly defined and understood by everyone involved?

When it comes to goal setting and development plans there are many different things to consider these are just a couple of points (Maybe we will cover this more in a future post).

Leaders and Leadership

Where managers are focused on the objectives, the team, and delivering to the business; leaders on the other hand tend to be focused on a longer term impact to the business: developing a vision, inspiring new ideas and creating change while empowering those around them.

Motivate and Inspire: As a leader you want to provoke new ideas and out-of-box thinking, the best way to accomplish that is to inspire and motivate those around you.

1. Brining a good energy to the team, room, or meeting
2. Making sure everyone has a voice and is able to bring their ideas to the table
3. Create a space that these ideas can be presented without fear or criticism, ridicule, or negativity

Ethical Champion: In order to empower and align those around you as a leader you must be trust-worthy and act with integrity. As you develop a rapport with those around you, your actions will convey your intentions and if your intentions / ethics are questionable you may find that people may not be upfront with you and if the team can’t be upfront with you then their will struggles in realizing and gaining support for a long-term vision. Leaders are those people that people may turn to when they hit challenge. Think about, the last time you hit a tough spot who did you turn to? Do you always report to a you direct manager or is there another peer you turn to for opinions, why do you go this person?

Setting a direction: Leaders are usually looking ahead toward long-term goals, these may involve changes to corporate culture or technology.

1. Building on the last two sections, as leaders gain the trust of those around them and continue to motivate / inspire those around they are able to influence the direction forward. Now, Influence can be good or bad, in the association of leadership we assume this influence is designed to be positive. After all our leaders are ethical and looking for the best interest.
2. When you are trying to change direction, you need to involve those that will be impacted by change. Soliciting ideas and inspiring the team come up with creative ways on how they can be a part of the upcoming change and how can the upcoming change be accomplished. This allows the team to be part of the vision allowing more people to buy in to the idea thus improving your chances of success.

I’ll provide a couple links below to two different podcast. These are podcast I have been subscribed to for many years now, one is focused on management and the second focused on leadership. I found these very insightful as they cover many different aspects of management and leadership:

Manager Tools

The Look and Sound of Leadership

Long time readers will know my background originates from IT engineering, specifically network engineering. These leadership and management tid-bits are from my first hand experience, I do not have a business degree. Feel free to drop a comment to provide your thoughts and insight.