PD Strategies Blog

A great core competency of managers is having excellent leadership skills. Management and Leadership are both important roles and it is best if they work together. A manager guides and controls but he or she can never achieve excellence without leadership skills. The roles of leadership are visioning, modeling, and motivating. In the earlier times of business, the role of a manager was not that complex. The manager oversaw what employees did. People performed or were fired. This traditional boss is no longer effective and no longer welcome. Management today is more complex. A manager today is responsible for the performance of the team, the business, or the company. The buck stops there but this does not mean that everything happens there. Things can be offloaded and delegated with confidence it the manager knows how to lead. That means that a leader gets results by working with and inspiring the team....

Both management and leadership are necessary. Management is a matter of job title that is given by your organization or by yourself if you are the owner of the company. On the other hand, leadership is recognition by those whom you lead. Expressed in different terms a manager has the authority and a leader has the power. The leader’s power is earned through empathy for the team, clear direction, trust, and other factors. Some leaders are born but most of us believe that they are made. Leadership is developed and, furthermore, there is not just one set of leadership traits. In fact, there are examples of two highly effective leaders with highly contradictory traits. The leadership in the US Armed forces, for example, inspires and demands that each person does his or her best. A military leader does not have to possess the traits and style of George S. Patten to...