A team reports to you. You handle budgets, timelines, work assignments, and performance reviews. Your direct reports look to you for clarity and support. In other words, you’re managing others… but are you leading them?
We often use the terms “manager” and “leader” interchangeably. After all, leaders and managers are both responsible for setting goals, solving problems, and making decisions. But leadership and management sometimes require different skillsets and focus.
Here’s an analogy to clarify those differences:
Leadership is pointing at a river and saying, “Let’s build a bridge across that river so we can move people to the coast. We’re going to connect with others, build communities, and expand commerce.”
Managing is overseeing the day-to-day technical and people aspects of making the bridge a reality: “You gather soil samples. This team will finalize the design. These people will build the bridge. We’ll use these materials, and we’ll finish by this date.”
Our roles determine the degrees to which we must both manage and lead, but no role is purely one or the other. Forward movement will falter without a measure of both leadership and management. We need vision, innovation, inspiration, and meticulous attention to detail to bring projects to reality.
Suzy Welch says the roles of leader and manager cannot be so easily split, and we must blend the qualities of both. She coined the term “lanager” in this article on Big Think: “Both concepts are important, but the essential aspect is combining the attributes.”
While managing day-to-day details, managers must also clarify why an initiative is essential. They must demonstrate that they own the project and are personally committed. They more effectively manage others if they communicate and act with passion and conviction.
Similarly, leaders cannot remain with their heads in the clouds. While sharing their vision, they must demonstrate that they understand the practical impacts, logistics and challenges a specific change or initiative may cause. To do otherwise is to diminish their influence.
So, how do you personally combine leadership and management attributes? Find your unique style and make it your signature for leading people. Ask yourself: What comes easily to me because of my personality and work experience? What is more difficult? How can I leverage my strengths and develop skills in areas where I need to grow? Where in my role am I called to lead and manage?
You may need to grow in one or more of these areas:
- Responsibility: Do you need to take more ownership for your team’s overall well-being, learning needs, or meeting the goals of projects or change initiatives?
- Empathy: Do you need to develop listening skills and emotional intelligence so you can better acknowledge the needs of your team and their personal and professional lives?
- Change Agility: Do you need to enhance your own or your team’s capacity for adapting to change or strengthen feedback loops?
- Efficiency: Do you need to change up your past and favorite work routines to improve efficiency? Where can new processes or technologies improve communication and work practices?
- Communication: Do you need to track miscommunication to discover where it is occurring and resolve it? Or do you need to encourage your team to embrace conflict that is constructive and solutions-oriented?
- People: Do you need to invest in your team members and provide them with meaningful professional growth opportunities?
- Ownership: Do you need to take ownership of your own mistakes and use them as team learning opportunities? Does your team need more personal responsibility and mutual accountability between team members?
We all influence ourselves and others, so we are all leaders. And each of us manages day-to-day activities and responsibilities. Manage and lead yourself. As your role expands, adapt with focus and intention. Get feedback, consider options, and make your best decision. Then, act on these decisions with passion and confidence.
