Leadership

Leadership

What is Leadership? 

Leadership is a unique trait that only a few people possess.  Leaders are enablers.  They have the ability to see things other people don't.  They can see through mounds of unrelated data and see a path to success. They are looking at the big picture and want to help everyone achieve mutual success. They can 'read' people.  People want to follow them.  People want to learn from them.  People trust them.  They (the leaders) want to serve the organization and the people in the organization, not the other way around where poor leaders (not really leaders at all) think that the organization and people must serve the leader.

Good leadership in the 21st Century Company requires attitudes and behaviours that relate to humanity.  Of course leadership involves decisions and actions relating to all kinds of other things as well.  However it is unique in its special relationship to people - the people who follow leaders.  The leader is always serving these people and looking out for their welfare and the company's.  Leaders' followers trust and respect them (the leaders) rather than the skills they possess.  Skills are important but not the most important factor.

Leadership traits can be learned to make you a better manager - but only a few people actually possess the true innate ability to be leaders.  When you are going about your everyday work look for the people who seem to automatically become the team leader on any team they are assigned - they rarely possess any more skills related to the assigned task than most other team members.  So why are they chosen to or automatically assume leadership of the team?  Or  how about the person that you feel you can trust or that their organization seems to be always ahead-of-the-curve? Or the 'manager' who is more concerned with their people than with his/her standing in the organization? These are people in your organization that need to be sought out and moved into roles where they can feel comfortable helping people and the company succeed.  They are the visionaries.  They have a positive attitude that is infectious. They are the enables to success. They look for mentors that can guide them, not manage them.  They must enable, that is what they must do or they will move on to other companies where their rare talent may be used by your competitor to negatively affect the fortunes of your company.

Leadership is absolutely essential to the success of any company today!  There must be one or more leaders to lead the managers and every successful company will have, must have, one or more leaders in the C-suite.  A company led by managers will not be successful in the long term. Generation X and Y employees need managers with leadership skills and love to work for Leaders versus Managers.

Leading, Coaching, Praising - R. Hibbard

Leading vs. Managing

Both Leaders and Managers are needed.  Often a combination of the two skill sets are needed to effectively handle a job function.  Project Managers routinely use both sets of skills.  This is one of the reasons why superior Project Managers are hard to find.  The balance between the skills and when to apply each skill requires excellent judgement.  Project Management is a key resource in the execution of your corporate or unit's Vision.  Senior management positions should always be held by people with a Leadership skill set.  Operations Managers can be more effective with an extensive Manager skill set.

Leading involves establishing direction.
Managing is about producing key results.

Here we have some descriptors for each:

LEADING PEOPLE	MANAGING PEOPLE
team-building	reporting
taking responsibility	monitoring
identifying the need for action	budgeting
having courage	measuring
consulting with team	applying rules and policies
giving responsibility to others	discipline
determining direction	running meetings
explaining decisions	interviewing
making painful decisions	recruiting
defining aims and objectives	counseling
being honest with people	coaching
developing strategy	problem-solving
keeping promises	decision-making
working alongside team members	mentoring
motivating others	negotiating
doing the right thing	selling and persuading
taking people with you	doing things right
developing successors	using systems
inspiring others	communicating instructions
resolving conflict	assessing performance
allowing the team to make mistakes	appraising people
taking responsibility for mistakes	getting people to do things
nurturing and growing people	formal team briefing
giving praise	responding to emails
thanking people	planning schedules
giving constructive feedback	delegating
accepting criticism and suggestions	reacting to requests
being determined	reviewing performance
acting with integrity	time management
listening	organizing resources
sharing vision with team members	implementing tactics