Much has been said about companies needing ‘the right management’ team. But what does that term mean really? To understand the concept it might be useful to know the difference between managing and leadership and remember that it is the people performing the work under the right leadership that make or break the bottom line.
Managers set the strategy and work with staff on the action plan. Leaders set the vision for how this work should be done and where the company should be philosophically, financially and strategically once the project is complete.
Leaders mentor managers by respectfully holding them able and accountable. Managers delegate and work with staff to ensure they have the resources to do the work. Sometimes the best leaders are staff members. Sometimes those people with leadership titles don’t know how to do more than manage, nevermind mentor.
In our work, we’ve found that the hardest thing for manager/leaders to do is to delegate… to stop thinking others don’t do it as well as they do. Many managers think you should be able to show someone something once and then get mad at them the second time when they ‘don’t get it’. People should just know how to change how they work by being told what to do. I hate to be the bearer of bad news but humans don’t work that way. And neither should managers who want to be leaders.
If your management team isn’t getting results and gets more resistance than progress, read this article about how leadership training helps the bottom line.
Not everyone is born knowing how to take on the these two roles.
