Manager versus leader? Where do you fit in?
As a proponent of leadership, I would really love to get away from the word “management” when it comes to leading people. We should not manage people. We should lead people. With regards to management, it is a dated, archaic title and behavior.
As listed by Oxford Languages, by definition, management is the process of dealing with or controlling things or people. Let’s think about that. Controlling people. Is controlling people how we want our business leadership to treat our employees? Whereas leadership is listed as leading a group of people. I don’t know about you but I don’t want to be controlled, but I do want to be led. I want to learn. I want someone supporting me and my development.
If you are a manager, you manage these things:
- Work
- Schedules
- Projects
- Processes
- Procedures
- Quality
- Safety
If we attempt to manage people we are telling them what to do, when and where to do it. To manage is to live in the here and now and therefore lacking in any vision for the future of our teams.
As a leader, you have the ability to:
- Influence
- Motivate
- Develop
- Challenge
- Listen and learn
There are many reasons to want to be in management but I ask you to consider your personal reasons for wanting to be in management. If your personal motivation is financial, I suspect leadership is not for you. If you want to build better employees resulting in better teams with better performance, I say go for it. Read all you can. Learn all you can. Be a great leader!