The Better We Lead, The Less We Have To Manage

Although they are related, leadership and management are two entirely different things. Many people who wish to be leaders and believe they are doing so are actually just managing.

Leadership is a forward-looking activity, whereas Management is a backwards-looking activity.

Management is about, whether or not we did the thing right, have we completed the tasks on schedule, are we making the right progress. It’s a tough job, and it requires a lot of effort.

It’s so tough in fact that we can become bogged down in it, and stop leading altogether, which then requires us to manage even more.

If we want to become great leaders, then we need to reduce the amount of management we do.

How do we do this?

Well, it’s not by just doing less management, it’s by actually doing more leadership!

The better we lead, then the less we have to manage.

Leadership is fairly simple really, it’s all about

– Setting direction

– Inspiring our teams

– Providing reward and recognition for the progress made

If we can do those three things well then our teams will become self-sufficient, they won’t need us to constantly stand behind them badgering them and cajoling them along to get tasks completed.

Once we get to this state then we can focus more on forward-looking activities and more on leading our teams.

If you’re stuck in management hell, and not able to find the time to lead, try and step back and see what the problem is. See what you can do to move from managing to leading.

It might not be something you can do to make a complete change, but there will be some things that you can do that will move you in that direction. Then you need to keep your focus on moving to leading, day by day until you are in a position to let go of the management tasks and can just lead.

It might be that you bring in someone to do the management for you, or delegate this task, but you have to free up some time to lead.

If we can never plan for tomorrow, then we will always be struggling today!

Seeing and understanding this is one of the first steps to becoming a great leader.

If you want to learn more about creating highly engaged teams or being a better leader click the link to make an appointment to talk about how I can help.