Management Vs Leadership
Posted on 12. Oct, 2009 by Matt Shelly in Self Improvement
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By Todd Bavol, The Job Search Ninja.
CEO, Integrity Career Transitions
As they begin to look towards their move up the corporate ladder, many people, quite understandably, begin to focus more and more of their attention on developing their management skills. Whilst these are, of course, extremely important in ensuring progression in many careers, they are often focused on to the exclusion of another key area, that of leadership.
Although often used synonymously, management and leadership are actually two discrete concepts and it is entirely possible to be an excellent manager but a lousy leader. So, what is the difference between the two? In a nutshell, management is largely concerned with maintaining the status quo and leadership is about changing it.
The aim of any manager who has a team of staff (which of course not all managers do) is to ensure that the policies, systems, protocols and procedures which are already in place are followed in such a way as to achieve maximum benefit for the company. The guidelines are already there and the boundaries already clearly marked out, and to a large degree it is the manager’s job to ensure that his staff stay within them, which he does through organization and planning.
A leader, rather than ‘controlling’ people, is more concerned with directing them to bring about change which could be at an individual, team, departmental or organizational level. He does not achieve this through insisting that staff do as they are told, but rather inspires and motivates them to follow in the desired direction. Indeed, because leadership in no way suggests a hierarchy, a leader may not even have the authority to insist that staff take a particular direction, so he needs to use a different set of tactics to create a voluntary following and achieve his ends.
Good leaders are usually people who have a great deal in the way of creativity and vision. They constantly have one eye on the future and continually seek ways to do things differently or better and then they inspire others with their own passion to make them actively desire and create change. They don’t need to drag staff screaming and kicking into the future, but through superb communications skills and the demonstration of respect for others, they tease them gently forward of their own volition.
Creating change within an organization can be an exceedingly difficult task because of course change is something to which many individuals are extremely resistant. Having excellent leaders is therefore vital to most, if not all, companies, and leadership skills are highly valued. Although in some cases leaders seem to be ‘born’ rather than ‘created’, leadership skills are ones which can be learned and doing so is a great way to stand out from peers and even managers.
For information about career products and services, visit www.integritycareertransitions.com. You can also follow The Job Search Ninja on twitter at, www.twitter.com/jobsearchninja, for great career advice.
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