Management is doing things right (efficiency)
Leadership is doing the right things (effectiveness)
The online definition is
Effective - successful in producing a desired or intended result./fulfilling a specified function, in fact, though, not formally acknowledged as such.
Efficiency - achieving maximum productivity with minimum wasted effort or expense.
Leadership is about people. It’s not about organizations, or plans, or strategies. It’s about people, motivating, inspiring and influencing people to get results, using the organization, plans and strategies.
In your leadership role, you bring change. You are a change agent.
But change upsets and makes people feel insecure. It stirs up fears, uncertainties, and distress. You need to help the change effort with authentic empathy with all the concerns, helping the team to feel comfortable to share, express, and feedback their concerns, insights, and offer solutions.
Without this leadership, insecurity and uncertainty will only increase and become set in concrete as they resist your efforts. This will lead to a very formal approach embedded in lack of contribution, collaboration and will put strain on the relationships.
There are many well managed businesses lacking leadership.
They are moving correctly but in the wrong direction.
Full of excellent processes and systems for everyone, but with the wrong attitude - no understanding, no human-side, not consideration, no heart, no feeling.
Staff tend to move away from these situations as soon as possible.
Your job as a leader, is to provide direction through mission and vision, to motivate through modeling and inspiration, to build a high performance team based on trust and mutual respect, to be high performance-minded, focused on getting results, as a team. This clarity of leadership direction, and clarity in your leadership role, with your motivation, inspiration, modelling, gives security, stability, and buy-in.
When there is no vision, there is no direction, and People quickly lose sight of their mission. Your leadership is critical to your organisation.
Stephen Covey said:
Without strategic leadership, people may dutifully climb the ‘ladder of success’ but discover, upon reaching the top rung, that it is leaning against the wrong wall.
Leadership deals with direction, as we have said.
Leadership focuses on the top line - values and principles.
Leadership basically cultivates a team culture where there is mutual respect and trust, empowering strengths and making weaknesses inconsequential.
When you talk to managers you will sense how important they are in the efficient use of resources.
When you talk to leaders you will discover how important you are.
