The Managed and the Led

David Cooksey

Management without effective leadership can cause serious problems in an organization. Poor morale, lack of motivation, and lack of job satisfaction are signs of poor leadership. Your people don’t want to be managed—they want to be led!

If you look at those organizations you most enjoyed being involved with I will bet you believed in and understood the direction of the company, were recognized for your efforts, and respected the people you worked with.

Those are the things good leadership attains.

As a member of Heartland Technology Group (HTG) , a peer partner organization, we develop four plans each year. One of those plans is a Leadership Plan, which identifies what managers will do to help accomplish the company goals. Each quarter we list specific tasks that we will accomplish to reach our leadership goals. We then evaluate whether or not we completed the tasks. If not, then we explain why and what we need in resources or time to complete it.

As I was reviewing my tasks I realized that all of the items that I had identified were "management" tasks. I have been focused on managing processes, metrics, or key performance indicators. All of these are things a manager needs to look at and monitor—and they are very important (see my previous post on Business Intelligence for more on this). But what I realized is that none of the tasks or goals I had set for myself had anything to do with leadership!

  • Good managers focus on things like organization, budgeting, planning, decision making, and problem solving.
  • Good leaders will inspire, provide vision, motivate, mentor, and set an example that creates loyalty.

You can manage a process, but you must lead your people. When I look back at those individuals who have had the most impact on my life, they all had good leadership skills. I have been inspired and chastised by most of them. Being a good leader doesn’t require you to be perfect. It does require that you be perfect in your commitment to lead.

So going forward, while I will continue to manage the process, I will also communicate the vision. I will measure the performance and work to inspire the performer. I will plan our direction and provide motivation to follow. I will try not to forget that management is not leadership and that we won't be successful without both.