Never Confuse Leadership And Management
One of the most hotly debated topics in the business arena is the difference between leadership and management. While it might be tempting to ignore this distinction as merely an exercise in semantics, you'd be creating a big mistake. Many businesses face serious problems because they believe they're managing and leading at exactly the same time. The truth is, they're often confusing these almost absolutely opposed principles and failing to separate your lives the two.
Legendary management consultant Peter Drucker suggests that leadership is about managing change, while Better Manager is about managing complexity. Management involves the creation of systems and processes that let you produce results at the cheapest cost and highest profit possible. Defined this way, management features a low tolerance for risk. It is wholly at odds with leadership, that will be about taking risks, being flexible, and innovating. Ignoring this crucial distinction often means the difference between a business'success and failure.
An excellent place to begin with this is to take a seat and perform a sincere self-assessment test. You are able to take this an action further and distribute an anonymous evaluation of one's leadership and management by your staff. This will help you identify your strong leadership points and then work with your weaker areas.
Do some investigating within your organization process to pinpoint your priorities and operating parameters, but most importantly, just how you're leading your organization. Then, devise a plan to breakdown your "manager" persona and act as a real leader.
By looking after these simple steps, you'll come to identify the necessity of becoming a leader. No-one can start or run a business without leading and influencing others. Even solo-preneurs must lead the bankers who provide them with their business loans, the colleagues and members of the family who provide support and encouragement, and many stakeholders. Sooner or later in any successful business, all owners reach the limits of the individual capacity and must rely on others to help get things done. Leadership is inevitable.
By analyzing your leadership role, you can also are able to enhance your interpersonal skills - a crucial section of leadership. You'll recognize that leadership and management are separate but interlinked systems that relate together - learn how to take on the correct roles at the correct times.
Whether you employ one, 10, or 100, you must be able to lead authentically. Even though all you do is point and say, "We're going like that," the question that often follows is, "Why?" Once the going gets tough, your consistency and fabric as a leader is going to be tested. How do you want to respond?
Action Plan
Take the following steps and find out where you stand as a leader.
1. Assess your leadership experience. So what can you rely upon to be able to be a successful leader? If you have little experience, who could you turn to as a part model or mentor? Icons of leadership are around, and books on the subject fill library walls.
2. Assess your leadership plan. The very first thing that may screw up good leadership is just a lousy plan. Most entrepreneurs have stars inside their eyes. Take those stars and temper them with practicality, pragmatism, and life. Formulate a reasonable plan with attainable goals and milestones.
3. Develop a good decision-making process. List the criteria against which you'll make your entire decisions. Focus on a simple list, such as the following: Can I accomplish it? Do I know how to do it? Do I need someone else's help? How long will it take? How complicated is it? Simply how much will it cost? Will it develop revenues in the longer term or longterm? Am I carrying it out because I wish to or carrying it out because I would to guarantee the success of my business? Do I have enough information? Do I know what I'm doing? Questions like these can guide you in determining the realism of one's plan. By dealing with a checklist such as this one, you'll know whether you're willing to proceed or you have more work to accomplish prior to making your decision.
4. Involve your team. If you have a group, use them to help you develop your decision-making criteria. Involving your team will improve communications and assist you to make decisions more quickly. By working together, you'll eliminate stress for everybody concerned. Rather than debating the parameters of a determination, you will have unified criteria against which your organization makes its decisions. If those decisions are associated with the values and principles of the organization as a whole, you will have integrity through the organization. If you don't have a group, consider enlisting your family in helping you develop decision-making criteria. Once you own your own personal company, your organization decisions affect your entire family. Involving them in the decision-making process (not all the decisions) can assist you to avoid conflicts.