We exist in an era of business where the act of leadership is often more celebrated than the practice of management. In reality, it is rare for the two to exist in isolation. Relying too heavily on one style over the other has serious drawbacks.

Leaning too far towards leadership lends itself to a lack of good management processes such as feedback, performance reviews, KPIs, etc. On the other hand, too much management leaves control and decision making in the hands of managers which is not ideal.

In order to properly and adequately motivate, develop and build a high performing team, the task requires the agility to deploy both management and leadership under the right conditions and at the right time.

When to Lean on Leadership?

Leadership is the best approach when the individual or team has the required skills to perform a role but are lacking motivation, energy or the necessary soft skills to achieve results. In our workshops, we tell participants to think of coaching like you are holding a flashlight and shining it in a dark box. The role of the coach is to be the flashlight.

Rather than searching through the box yourself to find the answer, through powerful coaching questions you are helping the direct report build valuable instinctual brain connections to solve the problem themselves. In this way, coaching only works when the answers are in the box… these are situations where your direct report has the capacity to solve the problem, but they just haven’t made the connection yet.

In the case where the answers are not in the box, then coaching can actually decrease performance and cause frustration. A good example is when a leader says “I need you to come to me with solutions not problems,” but the direct report doesn’t have the information or organizational knowledge to be able to accurately solve or dissect the problem themselves. The following are some cues to use when leaning on leadership:

Cues to Coach – Building Capacity

• Over reliance on asking directions for things that are in your direct reports responsibility.
• The direct report has good form but could be better. Think of athletic coaching. The swimmer knows how to swim but the coach sees things from the edge of the pool that the swimmer cannot and can offer valuable guidance.
• The problem doesn’t require immediate/urgent solving. Coaching is a long rage strategy, not something requiring immediate attention. Coaching for poor performance is not the best approach.

Cues to Inspire – Connecting to Vision

• There is a lot of change and you sense frustration or change fatigue
• Low energy on the team and you are trying to boost morale
• High work-loads and team is not connected to the work
• Team is engaged in busy work and having trouble prioritizing

When to Lean on Management?

Management does not have to equate to performance management or discipline although this is sometimes part of the package. Management requires interventions and feedback early on to prevent bigger problems later.

Feedback is a normal part of growth. Our bodies only grow because we have mechanisms that give us feedback, both positive and negative, on how we are doing and what we need to do better. The best way to incorporate management into your practice is to build feedback systems into your daily routine – this includes a weekly cadence where you review work, provide feedback and give directions. This also includes after-action reviews or post-mortems on projects that didn’t perform well.

Most leader-managers don’t have regular feedback cadences in place. That is until they need to have that big performance discussion and by then it is often too large to correct well. For management, we encourage building these core management activities into your daily routine.

Monthly One-On-Ones:

• MANAGER: What went well. Not so well. Room for improvement.
• DIRECT REPORT: Key priorities. Challenges. Big Wins. Support needed.

After Action Reviews:

• What were we trying to achieve?
• What was the real result?
• Why the Gap?
• Lessons learned?

Goal Setting (SIMple):

• Specific
• Important (to the business)
• Measurable

Rounding Out Your Practice

Becoming an effective leader-manager involves building some flex in your knees and trying out new strategies that are often out of preference to your innate leadership style. When thinking about your own leader-management practice consider the following:

If you tend to lead more than manage – manage more. If you tend to manage more than lead – lead more.