The Leadership Challenge

What is the difference between being a manager and being a leader? Can you be a leader without being a manager? The answer to the first question is being a manager means that you need to plan, design, create and follow processes for your team to deliver what is expected from your organization. Being a leader means that you need to understand, empathise and motivate your team towards goals that you have all bought into. The answer to the second question is no you don’t need to be a manager to be a leader.

This book has been written to help those people who either aspire to be a leader or are leading a group of people and want to understand the difference between managing and leading teams.

If you are a manager or a leader how were you prepared when you were promoted or when you moved to a new Company for the new role? Often when we accept a managerial or leadership role we focus on the technical aspects of the job. The technical understanding of your role is important but there are other skills that you will need to gain respect and demonstrate to your team that you are their leader.

Leadership is defined as “The action of leading a group of people or an organisation or the ability to do this”. Whilst this may sound obvious there are many people who ask, “What does Leadership really mean?”

Most people will take on a leadership role sometime in their working lives whether it is leading an organisation, a department, a team, a project or organising an event. Often, we are given a team role if we have demonstrated that we are good at our present job. That approach leads to the “Peter Principle”. In the Peter Principle you are promoted until you find a role that is beyond your capabilities. As an example, somebody who is excellent at coding is then asked to run a small project. This means that their programming experience is still relevant which results in a successful project. The next stage is to be asked to run a bigger project and again the programming experience and running a small project is relevant. Then you are asked to run a large team at which point the programming experience is largely irrelevant. Instead man management is the primary role, and this is where Peters Principle can come into effect. Have you the skills to be a good man manager? A good leader will recognise that they have some weaknesses and will put a plan together to mitigate the risks that they have identified. But all too often we are left to struggle through. The question is will you “sink or swim”. 

In the definition of Leadership there is one small word which needs some clarification. That word is “ability”. The leader should have the ability to lead a team or organisation. But what does ability mean? There are skills that leaders need that are just as important as the technical aspect of the role, some of which are:

1.      Understanding Who You Are – Without knowing who you are, how you react to situations, what your management style is, and how you are perceived by people around you it is extremely difficult to lead others successfully.

2.      Coaching and Mentoring – How do you manage people? Do you have one method for everyone in your team or do you have a method for each person? How do you help your team to progress?

3.      Goal Setting – Do you set Goals for yourself and your team? How do you monitor the Goals?

4.      Creative Thinking – Have you considered how your thought process work? How do you make decisions?

5.      Active Listening – Have you thought of your response before the person you are speaking to has finished their point? Do you practice your listening skills? 

6.      Powerful Questions – Who, What, Why, When, open and closed questions. The way you question situations can have a fundamental effect on how you are perceived.

7.      Mindfulness – Are you too busy to focus on the things that are important to you, the team, and your business or organisation?

8.      Words We Use – The words we use and how and when we use them are extremely important. How do you greet your team? How do you start meetings?

9.      Stress – Stress can be good for you and your team but too much stress can break your team. How do you cope with stress? How does you team cope with stress?

10.  At Play – It is important that you have time off otherwise you will be far less effective. If you want to be more productive resting and doing something you enjoy outside of the work environment is vital. How do you relax?

11.  Learning and Education – What time do you put aside for your education? Great leaders are always looking for an opportunity to learn.

As you can see becoming a leader is much more than doing your job well. You may well be the best person for the technical parts of your role but if you want to gain respect as a leader you will need to start to look at yourself far deeper than you have done in the past. Are you ready for that challenge?