Leadership vs. Management Skills: Leaders at All Levels Must Build Both and Learn to Switch Effortlessly Between the Two

Posted on 04/26/2011 at 08:00 am

Whether you’re a government, private sector, or non-profit leader, both leadership and management are necessary skills to bring your organization forward. I say both “leadership” and “management” because we like to make a distinction between the two.

Leadership involves inspiring, motivating, crafting a vision, setting direction, strategic thinking, and bringing out the best in your people.

Management involves planning, tracking, and measuring – in short, handling all the nuts-and-bolts of day-to-day business operations.

Clearly, people in positions of responsibility need to do both well to be successful. This need dramatically intensifies during times of economic uncertainty, a shifting political landscape, and the constant need to do more with less.

But, let’s avoid the pedantic debate that many leadership consultants, business book authors, and self-improvement gurus love get into about which is more important. Endless tomes have been written on the merits of leadership vs. management.

Instead, let’s focus on what’s most important: building solid skills in both leadership and management AND the ability to switch gracefully between the two.

For example, throughout the day, as a leader you may need to inspire in one meeting (lead), tackle financial metrics in the next (manage), reflect on the strategic plan (lead), and then tackle budget problems (manage). 

And, even in the same meeting and with the same people you must exercise both skills. For example, what started as a financial metric meeting (managing) shifts to a meeting where you must step up and inspire your people (leading.)

Too often, people in positions of authority get stuck in one dimension and cannot shift between the two. This results in a disconnect between you and your people. For example, people wanting to be inspired (i.e. led) get nuts-and-bolts details (managed), and people wanting clear plans (management) get vague vision or speeches on empowerment (leadership.)

While most people are stronger in one area than another, the best can shift between the two and provide what the situation requires. As you prepare to do that, here are a few tips: 

  • Build The Fundamentals of Both Leadership and Management: Build your leadership skills (inspiring, motivating, visioning, strategic thinking) and your manager skills (planning, budgeting, day-to-day operations). This makes up your foundation.
  • Lead and Manage Strategically: Before entering each meeting throughout the day ask yourself, “What does this meeting require - management or leadership?” Be flexible, although first think about how you want to show up.
  • Learn to Read the Situation: Practice reading situations to determine if you need to lead or manage. For example, when an employee asks a question about the budget, are they merely asking an intellectual question about the numbers? Or are they really looking for inspiration? Or perhaps subtly offering a suggestion and requesting to be empowered? Herein lies the art of leadership and management, but as a quick guideline, ask yourself, “What’s motivating this person’s question or statement?” Address their question/statement and then address the underlying motivation. (Coaches often call this “the question behind the question.”)
  • Use Your Daily Life as Your Training Ground: Practice deliberately shifting between leading and managing in your daily interactions at work. Use the situations in front of you – budget meetings, tough discussions, cross-divisional meetings, etc. to read the situation, strategically practice each skill, and shift nimbly between the two.

In sum, both leadership and management are important, clearly. What’s more important, however, is using the right skill at the right time. Doing that requires building your ability to read a situation and nimbly shift between the two.

As you go forward, seek to move beyond an intellectual understanding of leadership and management. Practice, practice, practice because the stakes are high and getting higher.

- Adam Chalker, Senior Consultant

Tags: Leadership Development  

Comments

I hadn't thought of the distinction between leadership and management, before. I had been merging the two; however, your article has me re-thinking how I will approach my activities as Team Lead and look to see which aspect of my position I need to work on, more. Thank you.
Posted by Travis Potts on May 18, 2012 at 11:24 am

 

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