Leadership and the Inner Compass

Leadership- defined in a google search as, the action of leading a group of people or organization. 

Lynn's definition of leadership, Is to inspire and motivate in others to do more than they thought they ever could.  

The portrait of a good leader encompasses many things.  Much time has been spent comparing the differences in manager and leaders.  While any good manager/leader will balance the attributes of both, I find that most people who are responsible for others fall in one of the two categories.  Either they don’t know how to balance the leadership part of managing or they simply don’t care enough to balance.  Let’s look at some of the difference in a manager and a leader.

• A managers job is to plan organize and coordinate while a leader inspires and motivates innovation from her team. (Yes I said her, because I’m writing this blog)
• The manager tends to maintain an environment while a leader develops and improves the environment with their people in mind.
• The manager tends to rely on control and micro managing everything lending to the impression that the manager doesn’t trust people to handle day to day tasks.
• The leader inspires trust and autonomy leading to the development of future leaders who can act on their own. 
• The manager is the soldier, obeying every command while the leader is her own person trying to do what’s right in every decision she makes.  Leaders look for the nugget in people that makes them special and uses that opportunity to inspire them to push through their insecurities.

In this day people look to their management not just to be assigned a task to complete but to give them purpose and understanding as to why their work is important.

Like tools in a tool box each person has a purpose and it is up to us to manage to people’s strengths to help them succeed while growing their skill set and our business.  Investment in our people will reap many rewards.  (If only everyone felt that way)

There is such a thing as the inner compass.  Listening to our inner compass (set of principles or direction) as leaders will give us direction.  One can never know what the future holds.  Much will depend on our judgement at the time.  Are we listening to our inner compass, are we looking for ways to improve ourselves or are we content with being in charge?  One thing is for sure, you can’t go wrong with the inner compass.

What’s your style?  Are you a manager or a leader or can you make the argument that you balance both sides of the spectrum?

Until next time.