Management Vs. Leadership - People Follow Great Leaders

In the corporate world we live in, every successful business and organization need good to great leaders far more than good to great managers. A leader, in the business sense, is a person who effectively guides employees to attain the company goals in the most effective and efficient way possible. While it sounds simple, in Lee Iacocca’s latest book, “Where have all the Leaders Gone?” he states… “Great leaders are hard to come by because there are not enough good role models.”

As a manager, if you learn how to become a leader, your value to your company and ability to obtain better results with your employees will improve immensely. Managing is the important left-brain aspect of business management, and it is also more mechanical, methodical and pragmatic. Leadership is the right brain aspect.

A successful leader is a person who their employees can look to both in times of success and adversity. In fact, a good benchmark of a great leader is that employees will not abandon them in times of adversity. Since most people saw and remember the movie… “Master and Commander”, I allude to the captain’s balance between leadership and management (played by Russell Crowe). It was easy to follow “Lucky Jack” in the good times but even in times of adversity, while there might have been some grumbling, the old timers in the crew kept falling back on their past experiences with their captain.

A leader must also keep an eye on the main goals of the company, while making sure each step to reach the ultimate goals are conducted in an effective, efficient and productive manner as possible. Captain Jack never took his eye off the singular goal of engaging and defeating the enemy ship, even when he discovered how much more powerful she was and the fact the opposing captain outsmarted Captain Jack two times and nearly destroyed his ship in the process.

An underrated aspect of a successful leader is the person-to-person communication skills they possess and utilize daily. A great leader knows how each individual person needs to be motivated differently, rather than simply using one means of motivation for all employees. A great leader is an on-going coach instead of a six-month or once a year formal review person. At the end of the day, the employees need to believe in their leader and have complete trust in them and the company vision.

Improving Your Leadership Skills:

If you want to improve your leadership skills, there are steps you can take. While becoming a great leader is not an overnight process, you can definitely learn how to improve your leadership qualities over time, and start accomplishing gains, immediately.

The most important part of being a great leader is honesty and trust. Employees cannot follow someone for very long whom they believe lacks integrity, ethics or character. If you find yourself questioning when to be honest, you should realize that honesty is always the right course and the right thing to do. Even if being honest about an action or event is difficult in the short-term, the long-term effects are well worth it, because it will further establish you as a respected leader.

The second aspect of being a quality leader is to understand the vision of your company or organization and its overall objects and goals. By understanding the company's expectations and goals, you can help organize all the employees so that everyone is striving toward the same vision. Captain Jack kept reminding his crew that the overall goal is to protect their homeland, England, from a French invasion from Napoleon, by doing what they could do on the high seas to keep this from happening. When you do this and share the vision with your people, you will also be able to better manage people and know how to best delegate responsibilities.

The third aspect of being a great leader is to get to know each and every one of your employees and learn all about them. It’s a common misconception that a leader should never have contact with an employee outside of business hours and should keep a safe distant on a personal level to protect themselves and the company/organization. This may be the common advice of corporate attorneys but I feel the opposite is actually closer to the truth. In fact, the more you learn about the employees, the easier it is to be a leader. You must use discretion of course, and use empathy instead of sympathy as a rule, but this is one of the most overlooked critical success factors in great leadership.

Even though you aren't expected to hang out with your employees every night of the week, getting to know them, their families, their hobbies, interests and personality is another vital step towards being a great leader. The larger the total operation gets, the tougher this will be and it will be impossible in very large corporations. However, by understanding what makes each person tick, you will better know how to handle situations that may arise.

The fourth aspect of being a great leader is being a great listener. If an employee comes to you with an idea, a great manager/leader will listen and thoughtfully consider the idea. They will also make sure they get back to the employee later in regards to the idea or concern presented to them. A common mistake of poor leaders is to think they should make all the decisions on their own. If you don’t show your employees that you value their input and opinions, you are less likely to receive their respect.

The fifth aspect of being a great leader is admitting and taking blame for mistakes. This is yet another sign of a great leader (and by the way, do it as quickly as possible). Avoid passing blame to employees, as that can lower the overall morale of your team. Instead, place the blame on your shoulders while also looking for ways to rectify the situation and avoid repeating the errors in the future. Great leaders know this is core problem solving, not symptoms solving. When adversity does come (as it always does), don’t let it splinter your employees – use the adversity as a way to pull everyone closer together. In addition, if the team hits their goals, even if you played a major part in it, give them the praise. Conversely, if the team fails, you need to take the heat or blame.

Finally, the sixth aspect of a great leader is to not forget about praise. If an employee performs well, a great leader will take note of the performance and will publicly dole out praise. While this may not seem like a major aspect of being a good leader, it’s amazing how far positive, public recognition can go to help overall employee satisfaction and morale. An employee who knows their efforts will be acknowledged, will continue to work hard and smart. Conversely, an employee who feels neglected will become disinterested in their work and begin to fail. Use at least a 4:1 ratio here (praise 4 times minimum for the one time you need to instruct or take corrective measures). In addition, never, criticize, condemn or complain about an employees’ behavior in public.

Once you have mastered those six aspects of being a great leader, the job has just begun for you. Now you have to show your commitment by leading your employees by example. A leader who is all talk and does not “walk their talk”, or they talk but do not take any action afterwards, is a leader many people will not follow.

All studies on this subject show that a great leader needs to work harder than anyone else (sorry, no surprise there I hope). You have to put in the extra work when it’s called for, which will show the rest of the employees just how dedicated you are to the vision of the company. Simply delegating out tasks to other employees isn’t good enough if you want to be seen as a successful leader. In addition, do not make it a continued habit of dumping undesirable things off your plate that no one wants to do. And of course, you must always be coming up with ways to work smarter.

One book I read on this great leadership subject was John Maxwell’s… “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Great Leadership” so there are certainly other leadership traits and characteristic you will need to work on. As you grow in your role of becoming a great leader and manager, you will face obstacles along the way. However, if you remember and most importantly, practice the main keys to being a great leader and behave with honesty, integrity and with a high trust factor, you will become a respected leader that others will want to follow.