Balancing Leadership And Management

In my view, real leadership is the art of inspiring people to bring everything remarkable they are to everything they do. Real management for me is the science of making it easy for people to bring everything remarkable they are to everything they do. We need both leadership and management working in harmony with one another if we are to create remarkable workplaces that attract and retain magnificent people, both staff and customers.

Real leadership boils down to 5 actions:

1. Questioning,
   
   
2. Visioning,
   
   
3. Engaging,
   
   
4. Inspiring, and
   
   
5. Mentoring.
   
   

For optimum performance to occur these must be balanced with 5 management actions:

1. Focusing,
   
   
2. Systemising,
   
   
3. Measuring,
   
   
4. Following, and
   
   
5. Coaching.
   
   

Real leaders ask questions such as "where are we going?", "what happened?", and "what do you think?". Real leaders see a clear vision of the future and are able to articulate it in ways that inspire others to turn vision into reality. Real leaders are excellent mentors acting as keepers of culture, and are those we turn to when we have commitment issues.

Real managers help people to focus on the right things and co-create systems, both technological and operational, that support people in being the best they can be. Real managers measure progress towards achieving agreed goals and follow up on agreed actions to ensure we are forever closing the gap between current performance and possible performance. Real managers coach others in order to improve competency so that we are both performing and growing at the same time.

Are you a leader and a manager? For those of you at the top of your organisation you should be leading more than managing, nevertheless you must be doing both to some degree. For those of you on the frontline you should be managing more than leading, however again, you should be doing both to some degree. Have you got the balance right for you?

Possible Actions

• Get some feedback from staff and customers as to how well they feel you do the right thing (leadership) as well as do things right (management).
  
  
• Spend some time evaluating how much time you spend on the business (leadership) compared to how much time you spend in the business (management).
  
  
• Have an independent expert evaluate your effectiveness (leadership) and your efficiency (management) balance.
  
  
• Monitor your work for a fortnight and see if you have the right balance for you between relationships (leadership) and tasks (management).
  
  
• Ask yourself often, do I follow my gut instincts (leadership) yet act logically (management)?
  
  
• Ask yourself often, do you trust people (leadership) and yet have measures of control in place that act as checks and balances (management)?
  
  
• Forever ask yourself, are you thinking about why and what (leadership) as well as how and when (management)?

Buy Ian Berry's Audio Seminar CD from the Resource Centre:

What Real Leaders Do And Fake Ones Don't 

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