Lesson #21: On the Way to Becoming a Great Leader, Be a Great Manager as Well
Managers light a fire under people. Leaders light a fire in people.
—Kathy Austin
Much is written regarding the difference between management and leadership and each of their practical applications in business. While the emphasis of this book is leadership in action, I want to use this final lesson learned to expound on the relationship between management and leadership. The two terms are intertwined, and while different in purpose, management and leadership are complementary to each other and must work together to ensure an organization’s success. More importantly, management and leadership must be on the same page when it comes to respect and treatment of people. Again, without great people, there is no great organization. Better said, the foundation of all great organizations is built upon great people.
With that premise in mind, both management and leadership should have a common goal to work together to develop the organization’s people. How they go about this assignment may differ, yet the concept must be ingrained in each role’s responsibility in order to create a culture of appreciation for performance.
Investing in people to deliver expected results is common to both management and leadership, and its importance is paramount to an organization’s success.
Yet as both entities engage in this prime assignment, at times the expectation placed on managers to immediately assume the role of a leader is misdirected. This is especially true for people newly promoted to a managerial role. These people performed well in their prior job and are selected or chosen to be considered for a supervisory position. Congratulations on your promotion—you earned the opportunity to assume more responsibility. While you understand the function of your prior job and are great at task completion, you now must learn how to supervise others, how to manage.
In that regard, many organizations will send a newly engaged supervisor/manager to a manager training session. It’s a great opportunity to meet newly promoted counterparts and share in the learning experience. Along with providing information on the plethora of management responsibilities, these sessions also focus on a variety of managerial requirements from a results-through-people point of view. Aiming to craft a successful manager, much of the training material covers topics that in many cases are fresh ground for new supervisor/managers. Topics such as communications, critical thinking / problem-solving, customer interaction, employee performance discussions, time management, teamwork, empathy, motivation, team building, and decision-making are on the agenda for the newbie to absorb and master. Sure—learn to be a manager-leader in a one-week training session.
Not going to happen.
Many companies extend their training sessions to cover portions of these people skills by breaking up the sessions over the course of several weeks, even months. The newbie can’t be expected to learn everything in a single week, so many organizations take this approach: Let’s provide smaller portions of important material over a larger amount of time to guide the new manager so we allow them the opportunity to learn and actually apply the key learnings while they are on the job. After all, we can only prepare them to the extent of what they can absorb and put to good use. We want them to be successful in their roles.
Well, that’s a little better approach for sure. No sense drinking from the fire hose.
A third approach combines the classroom training with on-the-job training under the supervision of a coach or mentor. The new manager shadows the coach to watch and learn from someone successful in the role. The coach is an experienced manager-leader in his own right and spends time working with the new manager to assist and guide in situations that may be out of the norm of the daily tactical managerial routine. The new manager has access to a coach who oftentimes is a sounding board, mentor, confidant, and trusted adviser. Provided the coach has the best interests of the new manager in mind, and in the majority of cases they do, the new manager is on the right path to an enhanced managerial skill set.
While these three scenarios represent only a few of the available options for companies to assist new managers in becoming better managers, and while I support a focused effort by senior leaders to get involved in this regard, I believe the process to becoming a great manager takes time and effort and can’t be accomplished without longevity of process and experience. How long a time and how much effort depends on the requirements and the complexity of the position, but generally managers don’t become great managers overnight. Nor do great managers become great leaders in the blink of an eye.
Learning to be a great manager takes time, effort, and experience. Learning to be a great leader takes a proportionate amount of time, effort, and experience.
As groundwork to build on that critical statement, here’s a basic list of role responsibilities / characteristics / areas of emphasis for both managers and leaders. My intent here is not to categorize and separate the two roles but rather to provide definitions of general terms of primary focus for each role. There is crossover depending on the individual situation and circumstances and especially application. Remember the part about these roles being intertwined and needing to be thus for optimal success in developing people? Yet I also want to offer these brief summary statements with the caveat that while they are simple in phrasing, their individual meanings and the subsequent actions required are much more complex in reality.
As an example, “managing by doing” certainly requires an ability to perform the required tasks assigned to the job in order to teach and assist others to perform the job (i.e., while perhaps this is not a daily duty, the grocery store manager certainly needs to know how to operate the cash register, understand the checkout process, be familiar with the scanning system, and know how to engage in corrective action should any of the systems falter.)
Similarly, the leader values the importance of influencing others to perform their duties in line with the overall company strategy yet realizes consistent actions require in-depth understanding of stimulus/motivation, encouragement, coaching, feedback, reward and recognition, and the ability to use these skill sets in the appropriate manner and at the appropriate time. Setting a positive example as a leader is much more complex in execution than it is in mere rhetoric.
In general:
Manager Leader Task-oriented People-oriented Manages by doing Leads by influence Coordinates workers Develops people Works for goal achievement Creates organizational vision Motivates as needed Inspires incessantly Builds systems Builds relationships Solves problems Implements solutions Thinks in the moment Visualizes for the future Communicates for process Communicates for inspiration Controls situations Establishes trust Stays in a system Creates positive change Risk-averse Risk-taker Directs employees Builds followers
When you read the above characteristics, you most likely recognized that you are not set into just one side of the equation, that you are at times required to move back and forth depending on the situation and circumstances. This proves my point about the two roles being intertwined. Commonalities exist in practical application of the role responsibilities, just as they exist in the circumstances of the people in action in these roles.
For further clarification, have you ever worked with a manager who was spot-on in every task-oriented function of his role but was a bit lacking or severely lacking on the leadership side of the role? By the same token, have you been guided by a leader who was simply a marvel of vision and a tremendous change agent but didn’t have a clue as to what the frontline workers in the organization actually did to make things work? My point is, neither one of those people is fully effective in their roles and perhaps is not interested in understanding or does not have the capacity to understand the importance of the crossover in their responsibilities. They categorize themselves unintentionally. They forgot or never knew what got them to where they are at. Or they just don’t care. That’s not great management—and certainly not great leadership.
As I mentioned previously, I am a firm believer that the requirement of time, experience, and effort is at the core of developing great leadership skills. However, I am also a firm believer that the person who puts in the time, effort, and learns from their experiences as a manager places himself in a much better position to learn to be a great leader.
In essence, on the way to becoming a great leader, be a great manager as well.
Those who master the art of management and use that as a foundation for implementing great leadership stand a much better chance of being successful in their roles. They understand the importance of the knowledge of doing as a prerequisite to leading. Mastering the art of management requires personal knowledge of how things work in the organization. Mastering the art of leadership requires knowing how those things work and what effect they have in relation to the organization’s people. Do you see the connection?
Too often people are thrust into managerial roles and are expected to be leaders at the same time. Too often they fail because they are not fully prepared to assume the complex responsibilities of their roles. They have yet to learn the importance of management in their quest to lead. They have yet to fully engage themselves in the left-hand-column duties, responsibilities, and characteristics in order to prepare themselves for the right-hand-column level of complexity.
If you are ever doubting yourself as to the importance of your management responsibilities during your quest to learn and become a great leader, just think of these simple scenarios as they may assist in your thinking.
When customers in a retail environment want to lodge a complaint, they ask for the manager.
When diners at a restaurant have an issue with a meal, they ask for the manager.
When callers aren’t satisfied with their customer service, they ask for the manager.
It’s not too often that people will ask for the leader. They know if they want an immediate answer to an issue, it’s going to be the manager who will solve their problem.
That experience as a manager in handling customers issues is paramount to understanding what is required to be positioned for success as a great leader. It is the knowledge and skill set of doing that provides the foundation for leaders to act, and simply stated, the majority of leaders are able to take appropriate action because they have gained enough experience as managers to be confident in their decision-making process.
I applaud those organizations that empower their frontline managers to make legitimate customer service, customer pleasing decisions without having to get approval from a next-level-up leader. Those organizations understand the importance of allowing these current managers and next generation leaders to feel great about their decisions at an early experience level. They know these investments will pay dividends for their future leaders as well as their current customers. They fully understand the influence they have on their manager’s commitment to perform their jobs in exemplary fashion.
But more importantly these organizations who demonstrate that philosophy are led by people who enact the principle of leadership defined as leadership in action. They trust, empower, engage, develop, communicate, and invest in the people who are their organization. And they know why they need to execute this responsibility for their people to the utmost level of support.
After all, they were once managers, and their support as a leader is expected. There are no business guarantees that provide a straight and narrow path to becoming a great leader. Even if one succeeds at being a great manager, becoming a great leader is not guaranteed. The journey is complex, challenging, filled with obstacles and barriers, and at times unpredictable. Yet those that practice the art of management and keep a commitment to their people throughout their learning experience will always have a better foundation on which to build their leadership skills. People will recognize the manager-leader who places their best interests in mind, has their back, works for their development, supports their personal and professional goals, and places himself in a servant leadership position as a manager-leader who is on the path to becoming a great leader. They recognize this is more than a boss-employee transactional relationship. They recognize a true partnership with a manager-leader who cares about them and their responsibility to the organization.
Is there a secret sauce to great leadership? Hardly. Great leadership is one of those intangible phrases that comes with time, effort, experience, and a ton of positive reinforcement. Great leadership is hard to describe outside a plethora of complimentary terms but easily recognizable when seen in action. While plenty of words are offered to describe what great leadership is, the only true measure of great leadership is to actually see it in action. Great leaders are great leaders based on their actions and the effects those actions have on their constituents. Many have the ability to understand and share in another’s feelings, which defines empathy, yet it’s the actions of the person based on this understanding that define true leadership.
Resourcefulness: Able to meet situations; capable of devising ways and means Leadership in Action: It is said that great managers don’t need to have all the answers; they just need to be resourceful enough to know how and where to find the right answers. The same can be said about great leaders. When great leaders need to know the right answers, they just need to be resourceful enough to know where to look for those great managers.
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