LEADING, MANAGING, AND THE MYTH OF THE BORN LEADER
What does it take to succeed during tough, challenging times?
The myth of the “born leader” remains a strong idea and archetype in contemporary culture. Steve Jobs, for example, is remembered as a genius and “natural” businessman who created not one but two multi-billion dollar companies. But people forget he was fired from Apple in the 1980s, in part because of his leadership style. Steve Jobs the “leader” was years past the days of tinkering in that storied garage in Palo Alto; the leader he became was a result of experience, self-reflection, and learning.
THE DISTILLED LEADERSHIP DIFFERENCE
You don’t have to be a “genius” to be an exceptional leader. Smarts is a good quality for leadership, but it isn’t the difference-maker. In fact, the list of skills and qualities that define a leader is endless. Go ahead and do a search of “leadership skills;” the results create a confusing, not clearer, picture.
For learning and development to occur, the skill or area of development has to have enough clarity to know what “better” means. If you can’t define it, then you can’t teach it, learn it, or do it. It was this lack of clarity that partly inspired the birth of Distilled Leadership six years ago. (The other part was bourbon; you can read about that part here).
If we can add clarity to a murky subject, you get better understanding, better learning, and better results. We define it this way:
Leadership is the ability to motivate and inspire others to follow your journey toward a goal, vision, and new future state.
This is what we mean by “Distilled Leadership” – a broad, ambiguous concept distilled down into basic elements, making it easier to think about, talk about, and learn about.
In this first of a series of blogs, we’ll look at the first fundamental element of leadership and how we can develop our own skills.
Our approach at developing inspired and capable leadership is different and sticks better because:
Distilled Leadership Coaching Programs feel different – it’s highly tailored, goals- and objectives-focused, and helps uncover the leader within yourself.
The lessons of Distilled Leadership are easy to remember – connecting new ideas with experiences and concepts we already understand.
We embrace irreverence as a good climate for learning – the formality and corporate norms of typical leadership development programs crush genuine learning. Our format aims for the mid-point of the decorum of a board meeting and a scene from Anchorman. It’s within this dynamic blend that leadership transformation finds its most spirited and authentic expression.
We use assessment tools as practical and useful input, great for creating a starting point to early discussions. Treatment without diagnosis is malpractice.
Distilled Leadership’s unconventional approach encourages creativity in our thinking without constraints of “rules.”
Our market and audience is specific: companies under 1,000 employees – their founders, leadership team, HR business partners, line leaders, and leaders managing those line leaders.
This last point is the focus for the rest of this post.
LEADING VS MANAGING: SEPARATE SKILLS DELIVERING DIFFERENT OUTCOMES
Leading is a skill and managing is a skill. They are not the same skills. They overlap, but they are distinctly different.
Therefore, leadership coaching is not management training. Many confuse them, which is why many people plateau their careers well below their full potential.
Distilling the differences helps us focus on building the skills that truly matter.
Leadership: having the strategic vision, finding the path to it, and inspiring others to walk alongside us
Management: reinforcing a collaborative culture, mediating team issues, and ensuring your team, your division, your company is delivering results.
A good organization needs both leaders and managers, with different roles, skills, mindsets, and different approaches.
Leadership is important when you need to change your course and find new goals.
Management is important when you need to maintain your course and meet your goals.
Another way to put that is:
Management tends to be about delivering results from the rules.
Leadership tends to be about creating new rules.
Of course, good managers recognize when the rules don’t work and have the ability to seize opportunities (i.e., change the rules) within their scope. Similarly, leaders can’t create new rules willy-nilly – there are rules for creating rules.
What creates personal growth is recognizing when to be in manager mode and when to be in leader mode. (Look for my YouTube series on Leadership Change via my LinkedIn feed.)
LOOK INTO DISTILLED LEADERSHIP FOR YOU, YOUR TEAM, OR YOUR ORGANIZATION
Leadership is a coachable skill; furthermore, developing leadership skills is complicated but it doesn’t have to be mythologized. When you eliminate the fluff and focus on the core understanding of our definition, you’ll love our process. Which means you’ll develop faster and better.
Click here to contact us for more about Leadership Coaching through Distilled Leadership. Or schedule a free 30-minute Discovery Call through Calendly.