How Managers Can Become Leaders

In recent weeks I have seen several instances, one right after the other, where someone who is a very competent and conscientious manager was getting knocked around by his or her Board. These managers were all in a reactive mode, feeling victimized by their Boards. They did not seem to realize that, even though they may not be cut out for it, they could still act like leaders and take charge of their situations.

A few people are fortunate enough to have been born leaders, genetically programmed for it. The rest of us have the choice of remaining trapped by our manager genes or rising above them by an act of will and becoming leaders.

Managing and leading are two distinctly different roles that require different skills and different orientations. Often considered interchangeable, managing and leading in some ways are opposite. Very few people are naturally good at both. However, if you are a “natural manager” who is uncomfortable about taking charge, you need to understand clearly that you may have to act unnaturally in some situations to get what you want. This will be uncomfortable and will necessitate an act of will to overcome the discomfort. However, the more you understand these two key roles, the better you can adapt as needed.

Here are some key differences:

Managers: Are oriented to the internal environment, the people doing the work, their needs and activities Are responsible for structure, getting things done in the existing organization Tend to deal with facts and past experience Respond to what other people ask them to do See the trees Are good at managing budgets Are highly conscious of responsibility Do things right

Leaders: Are oriented to the external environment, what markets want, emerging trends Are responsible for vision, challenging the organization to new achievements Tend to deal with concepts and possibilities Take the initiative to chart their own course See the forest Push budgets or even ignore them Are highly conscious of power Do the right things

Over the years I have observed many managers and many leaders in action. I have come to see that the very thing that makes some people good managers keeps them from being good leaders, and the very thing that makes some people good leaders keeps them from being good managers. In other words, your natural flow of energy, your genetic tendencies, make you who you are. This defines your preferred mode of behavior, and if no one else pushes on you, this is how you will behave. However, just because it is a preference does not mean it is a limitation. You might be right-handed but you can still lift with your left. You might not have perfect pitch but you can still sing when it is time to sing. You can push yourself to do whatever needs to be done.

“Managing” comes from the Italian maneggiare, meaning to handle. Its root is the Latin word manus, or hand, the root of the word manual. The natural manager is good at handling people, getting them to do what is needed, without resistance.

“Leading” comes from the the Old English laeden, meaning to cause to go. The natural leader goes ahead to show the way, and causes others to advance by guiding or pulling them along.

It is painful to see someone who is a good manager, detail-oriented and trustworthy, getting hurt because they let someone else take the lead. Maybe that someone else is their Board or upper leaders. The point is, they are not sufficiently proactive, so they are always tossed about by others who are.

From another important perspective, we are all managers and leaders — of our own lives or our families or both. People who cannot manage themselves well cannot manage others well, and people who have no driving purposes for themselves cannot lead others well. But to state this more positively: managing and leading are skills which anyone can learn, regardless of genetic predisposition, and therefore one can enjoy a richer, fuller, more rewarding life and career.

If your natural tendency is to be a manager, becoming a leader will mean:

• Developing a personal vision of what you want out of your work/life and of what you want your organization to become. This can be a paragraph or two, or perhaps a vivid image, or both. The important thing is that it represent what you care the most about, dream about, and want for the future.
• Taking the initiative to suggest new directions to your Board, trustees, upper management or, if you’re already the CEO, your people. These new directions must be expressive of your personal vision.
• Encouraging long-range planning through a deliberate process that involves substantial input from customers and the marketplace on one hand, and your internal people at all levels on the other.
• Involving all your people in creating a concise vision statement or, better still, a sentence or phrase which creatively expresses your organization’s driving purpose, what it is becoming.
• Reading books and attending seminars on leadership, not just management disguised as leadership.

If your natural tendency is to be a leader, you will become a better one by:

• Learning to seek input from others, especially customers and workers, before making key decisions that will affect them.
• Explaining where you want the organization to go in language that even the simplest person can understand.
• “Lead by walking around.” Don’t hibernate in your office no matter how busy you are. Make time every day to mingle with the troops, chat about what’s on their minds, be a real person. Avoid elitist symbols like a posh office and a personal parking space.
• “Walk the talk.” Be the very embodiment of the core values your organization stands for. If it does not have explicit core values, define them with involvement of others. Then model the core values with your daily behavior, and talk about the core values as frequently as you talk about the weather or the stock market (or golf).
• Be sure you understand and are proficient in the human relations side of management. Don’t just assume that because you got promoted to leader you are also a good manager.

No discussion of what it means to be a leader would be complete without reference to Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus’s classic, Leaders: The Strategies for Taking Charge. The authors interviewed or studied many great leaders and came to the conclusion that they all had four strategies in common:

Strategy I: Attention Through Vision. Effective leaders manage attention through a personal vision. “Leaders are the most results-oriented people in the world, and results get attention. Their visions or intentions are compelling and pull people toward them…. This fixation with and undeviating attention to outcome–some would call it obsession–is only possible if one knows what he wants.”

Strategy II: Meaning Through Communication. “Many people have rich and deeply textured agendas, but without communication nothing will be realized.” To capture people’s imaginations and get them aligned behind the organization’s overarching goals, you have to communicate effectively, to manage meaning. “…All organizations depend on the existence of shared meanings and interpretations of reality, which facilitate coordinated action…. Leaders articulate and define what has previously remained implicit or unsaid; then they invent images, metaphors and models that provide a focus for new attention.”

Strategy III: Trust Through Positioning. “Trust is the lubrication that makes it possible for organizations to work…. Trust implies accountability, predictability, reliability…. Leaders are reliable and tirelessly persistent…. Ultimately it is this relentless dedication that engages trust.” By “positioning,” the authors mean taking a position and sticking to it, which people come to trust. They quote Calvin Coolidge in a passage which has inspired many:

“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with great talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence, determination alone are omnipotent.”

Strategy IV: The Deployment of Self Through Positive Self-Regard. This gets back to our point about the management of self being foremost, for managers and for leaders. The “creative deployment of self makes leading… a deeply personal business. For the most part, leaders emphasized their strengths and tended to soft-pedal or minimize their weaknesses.” Positive self-regard is not self-importance or egotism. It’s trusting yourself without letting your ego or image get in the way. It’s fundamentally self respect.

Positive self regard consists of “three major components: knowledge of one’s strengths, the capacity to nurture and develop those strengths, and the ability to discern the fit between one’s strengths and weaknesses and the organization’s needs. Because effective leaders have positive self-regard, they instill in others the desire to willingly follow. As one CEO said, ‘This business of making another person feel good in the unspectacular course of his daily comings and goings is, in my view, the very essence of leadership.'”

Finally, leaders “empower others to translate intention into reality and sustain it.” They use their power to empower others. “The leader’s style pulls rather than pushes on people. A pull style of influence works by attracting and energizing people to an exciting vision of the future…. Leaders articulate and embody the ideals toward which the organization is striving.”

And that, my friends, is how you stay on . . .

The Managing-Leading EDGE