Transitioning from Manager to Leader
When leadership positions come open in an organization, the natural
progression is for those who have excelled in managerial/supervisory
positions to be promoted. It doesn't take long, however, for the individuals
involved, and employees left in their wake, to realize that the skills
that made them excel as managers may not be the same set of skills required
for success as leaders.
Let's take a look at the difference between managers and leaders, and
the skill set required within each arena:
Managers
- Monitor people
- Manage the present
- Enforce the rules
- Sustain organizational performance
- Exercise power over
- Are given employees
- Give people instructions
- Do things right
- Try to fit the mold
- Are problem solvers
- Delegate responsibility
- Help people conform to the system
- Bargain
- React to change
- See training as a luxury
Leaders
- Inspire people
- Focus on the future
- Promote company values
- Improve organizational performance
- Exercise power with
- Earn followers
- Tell people why
- Do the right things
- Try to create their own mold
- Teach others to solve their own problems
- Delegate authority
- Change the system to conform to people
- Negotiate
- Create change
- Know training is a necessity
Realizing these differences, the challenge for individuals involved
then becomes making the transition required to view the world from this
new perspective. Making the conscious realization that the skill sets
and responsibilities of managers and leaders are different is, however,
the first major step in beginning that journey.
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Authored by: Jackie Rasmussen, Business and Industry
Specialist, University of Missouri Extension
Source: Creating Quality Newsletter, Volume
11, Number 4, April 2002
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