Leadership is the Practice of Management
Leadership and management are often used interchangeably, but they are different. I think most of us have heard this by now. Shows like Ted Lasso show us what a leader can be - someone with the ability to inspire, guide and influence people towards a common goal. Management, on the other hand, is the process of planning, organizing, controlling and coordinating resources to achieve specific objectives.
However, leadership and management are not mutually exclusive.
Great leaders possess strong management skills to effectively direct and motivate their team toward the desired goal. Similarly, a good manager must have skills to inspire and motivate their team toward better productivity and growth. AKA: Leadership. One cannot - and should not - exist without the other.
The best part about this? It means that we don’t have to carve out extra time in our day to be a good leader in addition to our management tasks. Leadership is simply the way one practices management.
How (and when) do you run meetings?
How do you (fairly) schedule staff?
What happens if the team is in a funk and it is affecting productivity or customer satisfaction?
How do you handle a delicate performance conversation in a way that allows the relationship to continue (or flourish!) afterwards?
I’ll be honest - sometimes, these tasks take a little longer than just pumping them out and checking them off a list. But we do ourselves a disservice when we pit management vs leadership in some sort of epic WWE Raw “over-the-top-rope” battle royale. We make achieving ‘leadership’ feel so out of reach from our daily grind.
Because in order to maximize organizational effectiveness, a leader must also be an effective manager. You must have the ability to plan, organize and control resources to achieve the desired result. The quarterly reports still have to happen, and the Purchase Orders must be signed.
Leadership is a vital component of management, and it is through effective leadership that the objectives of management are achieved. So small tweaks in the way you manage your tasks can level-up your leadership.
