Managing vs. Leading - Finding a Balance

There are important differences between managing your team and leading them.  Leading includes the ability to develop, motivate and challenge the group while trusting their ability and working along them side-by-side.  Managing on the other hand includes maintaining group dynamics, operations and all necessary delegation, and whilst it doesn’t touch on the ‘inspiring’ side of working with others it relates to the necessary ‘getting things done’ aspect of work life.

The following suggestions can help you become an effective ‘Leading Manager’

Share your vision

Make it a frequent habit to tell your team how their contributions and performance align with the organisation’s goals. Invest in learning about what your team would like to achieve in their career and current role. Link this information to current challenges and tasks they are responsible for. Offer them the chance to step-up and exceed expectations for the benefit of the company but more importantly, themselves. This won’t only benefit their motivation to align their interests with yours but will give you a team that is more focused on achieving long term goals.

DON’T FORGET: Be honest, staff can sniff out when you’re pretending to care about their goals from a mile away. If your immediate needs don’t relate to them straight away, be sure that it is going somewhere in the long run and communicate the process clearly to your team, and don’t remove yourself from the discussion or the process itself.

Delegate to develop

Allow your team the freedom to prove themselves by delegating challenging tasks and responsibilities.  Clearly state the goal of the task and trust that they will deliver. While monitoring your team’s progress is important, avoid micromanaging as this will not contribute to their overall development. It is important that you remain open for questions and lead by example. Ensure that the area you are developing them in is consistent with the company’s long term goals.

DON’T FORGET: Team differently experienced staff members in similar roles together for new projects. This will give more experienced staff a chance to learn effective delegation and communication, whilst less experienced staff have a chance to learn alongside those who are in positions they would like to reach. Give them clear goals that they should achieve with the other, and a chance to create their own objectives.

Empower and Reward

As your staff become more adept at certain tasks they should also become more responsible for the task’s development, improvement and management. If you can motivate your staff to ‘take control’ of their own performance in certain areas they will feel more confident in creating and measuring their outcomes to report back to you. This also gives them the feeling that they should be learning new ideas and techniques that add value to the task, their expertise and of course your business.

Reward plays an important part in empowering staff. If staff exceeded expectations, let them know that this could lead to new tasks and responsibilities for them, and explain how this impacts the company's opportunities as a whole. Make sure all staff are aware of the achievements and are all a part of the success.

Remember, operationalising and delegating tasks are important practices to grasp for any leader. You can’t always be the ‘good guy,’ but you definitely can add leadership strategies into everything you do to make sure you, the team and the business can continuously head in the right direction!