Plus a Special Announcement you won’t want to miss
People confuse management and Leadership. They’re not the same. This post is about why you need both but if you confuse them you might end up with neither.
But first a special announcement.
I’ve teamed up with Chase Murdock and his team at Durable to launch The Operator Accelerator. It’s a six-month program for people running companies of 10-100 employees ($1m – 15M in revenue) to speed up your progress as a better operator. It’s a combination of
Content
Tools
Hands on application
So you’ll leave each session with ideas you can put into action the next day. All curated and facilitated live (but virtually) by experienced operators and coaches.
Check it out. It will make you a better manager and a better leader.
We’re starting in May and only have 20 slots.
The Difference Between Management & Leadership
Management is getting work done through other people. It happens when you have an agreement about what good work looks like and you provide what people need to do their best work.
Leadership is having people follow you. It happens when you have a vision of something that could exist but doesn’t, and you share that vision in ways that inspire people to help you create it.
Let’s dig a little deeper into management
To be a good manager you have to:
Define “good work” in objective terms that you and the other person can agree on.
Align the work with the direction of the company.
Match the work with the unique mix of skills and abilities of your people.
Provide your people with everything they need to do their best. Give them:
Tools
Training
Time
Support
Motivation
Protection from needless bureaucracy or distractions
Let’s dig a little deeper into leadership
Leadership doesn’t depend on personality. There are charismatic leaders, boring leaders, introverts, extroverts. Leaders come in all shapes and sizes. But all leaders have two things in common.
They have a vision of where they’re going.
They share that vision repeatedly to inspire people to see their part in it.
To have people follow you, you have to be going somewhere. Another way to say it is your vision of what could exist sets the direction you want to lead people. It can be a grand vision – Steve Jobs is famous for wanting to make a dent in the universe. But it doesn’t have to be. Something as simple as “We make the best damn pizza in town so folks have a tasty meal at a good price” is a vision.
The vision should inspire people to want to help. So it’s probably not about you buying a second home or a third Lamborghini. It’s about what your company does for customers and others (including employees). You have to share it so often and in so many ways that your employees will mock you for it. Then you know you’re starting to get the message across. Keep at it. It’s been said that in the 1960s when NASA was figuring out how to put a human on the moon, even the janitors felt like they were contributing to that vision.
You probably see where each of your people fits into your vision. That’s why you hired them. Don’t assume they see it like you do. Make your vision explicit to them and their part in it. Repeatedly.
Leadership can happen throughout the organization.
You see this in sports teams. The coaches make the game plan. They assign roles. They get the work done through the players. But the team captains are elected by the players. They are people that the players want to follow.
You should be training managers and inspiring leaders throughout your company.
This is only a taste of what’s in The Operator Accelerator.