Are you Managing Your Business or Leading Your Organization?
Elliot Begoun
Tardigrades, Not Unicorns! CEO Coach, Board Member, Author, Founder of TIG Brands, TIG Venture Community, & TIG Collective
Are you Managing Your Business or Leading Your Organization?
They are too busy working “in†the business rather than “on†the business.
Managing a business is very different than leading an organization. This distinction may sound subtle or merely seem like semantics. The fact is, however, that this difference is often the determinate between stagnation and growth. Leaders who fall into the trap of managing fail to spend the needed time guiding their organization forward. They are too busy working “in†the business rather than “on†the business.
This is an easy trap. The temptation to take over, to “chip in†or oversee a project is enormous. In many ways it can viscerally feel as if a more meaningful contribution is being made. In my experience, a company that is stalling is often indicative of a leader who is too busy managing. So why is this a bad thing? If you, as a leader, are down in the engine room helping to stokes the fires, who is at the the helm watching out for the icebergs? To continue this analogy, who is inspiring the crew to deliver great service or assuring the passengers of their safe passage? A leader has different responsibilities than a manager.
If you, as a leader, are down in the engine room helping to stokes the fires, who is at the the helm watching out for the icebergs?
The other challenge with spending too much time in the proverbial “engine room†is it becomes an accountability killer. If you want your people to develop, grow and succeed, you have to give them the room to fail. If as the leader you jump into every key decision and participate in every major project, that room does not exist. Sure you may mitigate the risk of failure, but you also quell the opportunity for growth.
Here is where this gets tricky. This temptation to manage cloaks itself in many disguises. It is cunning, it manipulates you into believing that you are doing what a leader should do. I was with a CEO the other day. She said to me that it’s important to her that her people know that she is hands on, willing to roll-up her sleeves and dive in. So, she spends a lot of time in the field with her people. So I said to her that I think that is great, but which one of them do you have leading the company while you spend all this time out of the office? I call this the “Undercover Boss†syndrome. Listen, it is great and hugely important to be with your people, to be approachable. But don’t fool yourself, they want and need you to be their leader. They want to be assured of that safe passage. You don’t have to do their job, to make them feel heard, cared for, valued and respected. As their leader, you need only find a way to do just that.
Let me offer another example; a leader who shares with his team that he personally is going to oversee a critical new project because he wants to have absolute certainty of its success. What a huge punch in the gut that would be. He just told his entire team that he did not have confidence in their abilities. He is the ultimate micro-manager. Again, if you want people to succeed, you must give them the room to fail. This doesn’t mean that you accept failure. Insist that they install KPI’s, require routine report outs, develop processes and procedures that will alert you and the team to a potential failure before it becomes one. None of the things I just outlined require you to be the manager of the project. They do require you to lead it, which is entirely appropriate.
If you want people to succeed, you must give them the room to fail.
I understand that this is a nuanced differentiation and one not easily articulated. So let me leave you with this suggestion. Evaluate the activates that you are involved with. Ask yourself, is this managing my business or leading my organization? Really examine what it is that you are doing, push hard to identify this point of difference. If you do, and therefore start spending more of your time leading your organization, I am confident your results will change.
At times this is something you can’t see. It is in your blind spot. Frankly, bringing awareness to those blind spots is what I do, and if you are interested in having a conversation about your specific situation, please reach out, and I would be happy to set up a time to talk. You can also leave more general comments below and I will do my best to respond to each.
Thanks for reading.
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Elliot Begoun is a Business Growth Consultant and the Principle of The Intertwine Group. His purpose is to help businesses and business leaders grow. He works to solve real issues, establish strategic guardrails, develop integrative leaders and foster employee enlightenment.
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Grow your business - Solve real issues – Establish Strategic Guardrails - Develop Integrative leaders – Foster Employee Enlightenment
This is an interesting article and adds to a theme I’ve been hearing about a lot lately. It’s about aligning oneself to the ambition for contribution and problem solving rather than getting stagnant in the chaos. So then we ask ourselves, how do we gain the wisdom to recognize the difference when we are driven by result orientated expectations? Burchard (2014) says that “Humanity’s story has only two perennially recurring themes: struggle and progress.†He goes on to describe our actions as an absolute by stating “At any moment we are acting from a state of mind driven by either ease and fear or growth and freedomâ€. He continues by saying that failure in this result in “a life of reaction and distraction rather than one of conscious design.†A life of conscious design… this may seem like it is getting a little deep but I find clarity in the different perspectives people have in how we operate in our personal and professional lives. Greitens (2015) speaks to how our destiny is driven by the sum of small choices. That choices lead to actions, actions to habits, habits to character and character to destiny. He describes that how we operate and are perceived as leaders can be derived from a simple choice we make. One quote from his book that hits the paradox between intent and action is “remember that deciding is not doing and wanting is not choosingâ€. Jason Silva is also known for speaking on conscious design, one of his famous quotes being “I design therefor I becomeâ€. This is the type of thinking that separates a motivated manager from an inspirational leader. “We can labor new realities into being, we can author new realities†–Jason Silva. Some may say that these are defined as “soft†guidelines towards personal progress. So I also wanted to hit the two “hard†components of effective leadership, trust and communication. Sinek (2011) says that “Leadership requires two things: a vision of the world that does not already exist and the ability to communicate itâ€. Communication is the key to establish trust in the workplace. Stephen Covey’s book Speed of trust is a great book to bring congruency between your intentions and actions with developing and growing trust in your daily life. He illustrates his point by bringing ownership to ones actions and asks “in life, are you paying taxes or receiving dividends, are you a walking tax or walking dividend?†He breaks it down very simple by saying “Trust is a function of two things, character and competence; it is personal humility versus professional will. We are all in search of the answer to solve the gap between being a good manager and becoming an inspirational leader. There is not one real answer that we can lean on. One thing I have learned from my mentors is that it is about action not intent. It is about a way of living, so rather than looking for recognition and achievement one is motivated by contribution. It’s about changing ones perspective so that things stop happening to you and start happening through you.
Sales Consultant at CENTURY 21 Lifestyle Caloundra
9 å¹´Great article it is a very easy trap that I find myself falling into often. Love the comment from Bhadresh about a not-to-do list that is a great idea.
Amazon #1 Best Selling Author l Vice President at Bharat Bijlee Ltd l P & L Management l Drives & Automation l IIOT I Business Transformation I E - Mobility l Key Account Management I CII Start-Up Mentor
9 å¹´Good article. It means leaders should make not-to-do list instead of to-do list. Many times leader has to do micro manage since she does it trust team member .