Ibstock Building Products ILM L2 Programme

Leadership Vs Management – Some Theory

Leadership and management are both important in achieving success in whatever direction you are moving.

As Steven Covey quotes in his book – ‘The Seven Habits of Highly successful people’

Management is doing things right

Leadership is doing the right things.

Management is the skill, which builds the ladder

Leadership is leaning the ladder against the right wall

Management makes sure we have the equipment to clear a path through the jungle

Leadership makes sure we are in the right jungle

Leadership takes the premier position because it corresponds to what can be called the first creation. Everything is created twice – first in the mind, then in the physical world.

Covey again writes –

Leadership must come first – management is a bottom line focus – how can I best accomplish certain things? Leadership deals with the top line – what are the things I want to accomplish?

You can envisage the difference if you visualize a group of producers hacking their way through a jungle with machetes.

They are the producers, the problem solvers. They are cutting through the undergrowth to clear a path.

The managers are behind them, sharpening the machetes, writing policy and procedure manuals, holding muscle training sessions bringing in improved development technology and setting up work schedules and compensation packages for the machete wielders.

The leader however, is the person at the front who climbs up the tallest tree and yells – "we are in the wrong jungle!”

How do the busy managers and producers reply? “Shut up – we are making good progress”

As individuals, groups and businesses, we are often so busy cutting through the jungle, that we don’t even realise we are in the wrong jungle. In the rapidly changing environment we all work in today, leadership is even more essential as time does not allow us to spend time in the wrong jungle – the competitors will overtake.

We are in need of a vision and compass more than a road map. We often don’t know what the terrain ahead will be like, or what we will need to get through it, much will depend on our judgement at that time. Our inner compass will always guide us.

Effectiveness, even survival, does not depend on how much effort we expend, but on whether we are expending effort in the right jungle.

The metamorphosis taking place in most industries and professions demands leadership first and management second.

Effective management without leadership is as one individual phrased it

“Like straightening deckchairs on the Titanic”

No management success can compensate for failure in leadership. But leadership is hard because we are often caught in a management cycle – got to get the job out – managers are needed to be hands on – haven’t got time to stop and think about how effectively we are doing it – just keep on doing it…

Case study – quoted in Covey 1989

President of an oil company in Seattle

I looked at my role as the president of the company and realized I had never been into leadership. I was deeply involved in management buried in the day to day pressing challenges and detail of day to day logistics. I decided to withdraw from this hands on management. I could get other people to do that – I needed to lead the company forward.

It was hard. I went through withdrawal pains because I stopped dealing with a lot of the pressing urgent matters, which were right in front of me and gave me immediate satisfaction.

Others also went through the pain barrier – I was not as accessible as I had always been. They still wanted me to be available to them to respond, to be there for the day to day issues.

But, I persisted. I was absolutely convinced that I needed to provide leadership. So I did. Today our whole business is different. We are more in line with our environment. We have doubled our revenues and quadrupled our profits. I am now into leadership!!