Leadership
It is actually very simple: Leadership is executive management, or management of management. Leadership is the executive task, while management is the administrative task. To illustrate with an analogy: Management is administering Execution as in blocking and tackling, while Leadership is Building the Team and Developing the Play Book.
Basically, management is all the things you need to administer to keep a business running. It is organizing processes, looking after finances, minimizing risks, administering details, and handling the day to day operations and operational difficulties. Management is everything you absolutely need to make a business operate. Without good management, a business will stumble around drunkenly, fall down from time to time, and possibly even break its neck. With good management a company will survive. Leadership is the management of that management process. In that absence of good management, leadership builds it.
Then building on top of good management, leadership adds team building (at all levels of an organization), vision, and executive direction.
This is a simple concept, but for a variety of reasons, the whole world wants to make it seem complicated.
For one thing: Business leadership is not a quality that is limited to only executive management
The qualities of leadership don’t start in the executive office. Rather they start with individuals and how they approach everyday life. You don’t have to be in business to be a leader. And you can’t be an effective leader of others unless you are an effective leader of yourself. The show “Undercover Boss” recently had Larry O’Donnell working side by side with the rank and file employees. Without going into all the details, you can observe self leadership in the one very self directed, self motivated, porta-pot cleaning employee. You can bet that if you promote him to the first level of management that he would understand how to build the skills and attitude that the workers need to be successful.
For another thing: Leadership is not limited to business management
Even someone who is self employed with no employees still has need of leadership. The army of one still has to figure out what battles to fight, where to be and when to be there, what skills are the most critical ones to develop, and on and on and on. The leadership task of team building doesn’t fall away just because you have a team of one. In fact, the opposite is true: It is more important than ever that you figure out how to invest in the human resources of your army of one, because there is nobody else around to do it! Granted your team building is easier without the personality issues in a team of many, but the requirement itself still exists.
Yet one more thing: We don’t have a set of certified credentials to qualify someone as a leader
Unfortunately, we have a long and rich history of teaching management as business administration and not as leadership. This has lead to a large population of credentialed professionals who consider themselves leaders, but who have actually had very little leadership focus in their education and experience. We don’t have an army of credentialed professionals running around with MBL (Masters of Business Leadership) degrees. We have an army of credentialed business administration professionals instead.
Combine this with the fact that actual leadership training is a fragmented discipline with thousands of self certified experts (not to label them as arrogant, it’s just that there is no other kind of certification!) and each expert is teaching their own personal brand, flavor, and subset of the subject. You have leadership experts coming from a religious framework. You have leadership experts teaching from a sports perspective. You have military leaders, leaders who have been successful in business, and on and on. The only thing you don’t have is any common curriculum that is accredited for making one a leader!
So the credentialed professional managers, the MBAs, really don’t even have a clear program for leadership. Plus, the lack of leadership curriculum means that the MBA certification is still the highest available. They are left with no clear path to follow, and no clear indication of whether they are managers or leaders. So of course they declare themselves leaders.
Finally: Leadership is separating the executive task from the administrative task
But what is the Executive task and how does it differ from the Administrative task?
The executive task can best be described as fixing an entire type of problem, rather than fixing the individual problem. This is not to say that administrators and managers shouldn’t be expected to look for, recognize, and correct the type of problem. Leadership can and should be encouraged, taught, and rewarded in every single member of a team, from top to bottom.
Back to the Waste Management example, Larry O’Donnell is showing great potential as a leader. However, is he fixing the type of problem or is he fixing the specific problem? Assuming the entire exercise isn’t just a PR ploy, let’s consider a comment from the CBS website about his episode of the show.
kellibrooke noted: Anyone see a problem with how he handled Jaclyn’s situation? Her position required way too much work and she didn’t make enough money to keep her home. So… instead of realizing that her current job didn’t pay enough for all the work she did… He made her into one of him. Put her on salary, made her a management employee. That’s awesome for her… but what about her ‘replacement’ that she is supposed to hire? That person will be in the same boat as Jaclyn was. I’m happy for Jaclyn but the real issue is the job itself and the fact that people can’t support their families and keep their homes based on the wages he’s handing out to non-management employees. She’ll now be eligible for bonuses….what about the people he saw picking up trash and cleaning the johns….where are their bonuses??
Herein lies the real question: Is Larry O’Donnell a great leader? Or is he a great administrator? He certainly fixed the individual problem. Time will tell if he can address the type of problem as a whole.
Saturday, 13. March 2010
Nice writing. You are on my RSS reader now so I can read more from you down the road.
Allen Taylor
Thursday, 18. March 2010
Excellent article, a must read for HR. Thank you!
Thursday, 18. March 2010
Good article. I like you writing and approach to Leadership. Thanks!
Thursday, 18. March 2010
Interesting thoughts. Do you feel leaders cannot be managers and vise-versa?
Reminds me of Maxwell’s book “The 360* Leader”.
Well done, keep up the good work.
Matthew Schmitt
http://matthew-schmitt.com
http://twitter.com/matt_schmitt/
Thursday, 18. March 2010
Matthew, I think managers can be leaders and leaders can be managers.
But leadership is not necessarily an innate quality of managers. Leadership is something that has to be developed above and beyond management.
Friday, 19. March 2010
Hello, like this blog very much. I found it on google looking for self help books. I’ve added it to my RSS reader and will come back often again to read and follow. Please continue to do a great job.
Monday, 22. March 2010
Good afternoon, I don’t agree with everything here, but you do make some very good points. I’m very interested in leadership myself and I do a lot of research as well. Either way it was a well thought out and nice read so I figured I would leave you a comment.
Saturday, 27. March 2010
Great info! I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading and can’t wait for your program to be available.
Sunday, 28. March 2010
I obviously have so much more to learn about this. I think you gave me a lot to think about. Great post!
Monday, 29. March 2010
Thank you, very helpful!
Tuesday, 30. March 2010
Your rss feed is impressive! I can’t wait for each new post, so I added you just to see new posts. but I find myself reading and rereading all your posts whenever I have a free moment.
Well keep up the good work and make that rss button a little bigger so that other people can enjoy that as well
Thursday, 1. April 2010
Your blog is great. I love the idea of an actual program or course. Can’t wait to see it.
Monday, 5. April 2010
Do you plan to keep this site updated? I sure hope so… I read it all and can’t wait for more!
Tuesday, 6. April 2010
Hello, I love reading through your blog, I wanted to leave a little comment to support you and wish you a good continuation.
Wishing you the best of luck and hoping you finish your work soon. Also hoping your blog does’t stop when you finish your work.
Sunday, 11. April 2010
I just couldnt leave your website before saying that I really enjoyed the unique point of view you offer… Will be back often to check up on new posts
Monday, 12. April 2010
I thought it was going to be some boring old business site, but I’m glad I visited. You have an interesting point of view, and I am sure my readers will find it useful. I’m posting a link to this page on my blog.
Sunday, 18. April 2010
Hello, I love reading through your blog, I wanted to leave a little comment to support you and wish you a good continuation.
Wishing you the best of luck and hoping you finish your work soon. Also hoping your blog does’t stop when you finish your work.
Wednesday, 21. April 2010
Because of reading your blog, I decided to create my own. I had never been interested in keeping a blog until I saw how helpful yours was, then I was inspired!
Tuesday, 4. May 2010
Another way to look at it is that leaders work with people managers work with processes.
Anyone can manage few can lead!
Good article. It is getting to the point.
Sunday, 4. July 2010
Interesting position. I agree it is not that complicated but I believe you over simplified it. Leadership is so much more and most are managers and leaders. Joseph is so right on people and processes. Both are necessary to operate great businesses. Leaders should be inspiring and courageous. And yes they exist in all parts of your life. Have discussed this several times on my website for retailers.
Teresa
http://www.dailyvoicemaildealio.com
Your Virtual Retail Coach!
Tuesday, 27. July 2010
leadership z planing 2 manage or do thngs properly, weras managmnt z actully doing + putng physical efforts in it……….
Thursday, 29. July 2010
Really good article. Especially, executive vs. administrative tasks. But you know what? Management and Leadership are both important aspects of the business, and I think that they should complement each other.
I agree that lot of leaders of today’s world might be just administrators. But I believe that to be a good leader, you need to have both the skills.
Leaders do the right thing, while managers do things right.
Thursday, 5. August 2010
Thanx alot for sharring such a beautiful idea. I retweeted it.
I saw my self on some lines of your blog, & between many of them as well. The “one army leader” is what got my attention the most. Self leadership is essencial for group leadership. & it has to come from”self development-motivation”. Thanx
Tuesday, 17. May 2011
Have you noticed the news has changed its approach recently? Now it seems that it is discussed thoroughly and more in depth. Its that time to chagnge our stance on this though.
Friday, 10. June 2011
I’m impressed! Your article has really made me sit back and ponder. I will talk about your article.
Thank you.
Wednesday, 7. September 2011
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Saturday, 10. September 2011
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