You manage things and lead people.

Its not one or the other. Success requires a balance of both. Think about people you’ve worked for and what you admired about them that kept you there. They probably held you accountable for performance, and encouraged you to be better.

So, when did a manager become a leader?

In the mid last century, leadership was a component of management. There were four bits

• Planning
• Leading
• Organising
• Controlling

Do those four bits right and you were a successful manager. People were seen as resources, things you needed to get the job done. If that resource didn’t work, you found another one. A very mechanistic view.

Then leadership emerged in its own right, standing shoulder to shoulder with management. Human resources became human capital, or talent.

Management became transactional (inputs, transformation, outputs, deadlines, budgets, deliverables). Leadership became transformational (communication, learning, encouragement, vision, example, and responsibility)

There are very few roles where you get to just lead and not manage results. Similarly, there are few roles where you just get to manage results, and not interact with people who are assisting you to produce those results.

We are naturally oriented one way or the other. We’re either mostly relationship-focussed people, or task-focussed people.

Knowing your natural orientation, and working out what you need to do to bring some balance is normally useful.

We need to care enough to get the job done. Some care too much, and miss the target. Some hit the target and burn people out.

Remember, your role when responsible for a team, function, department or business is to get the job done, and ensure that the people doing the job are happy to turn up day after day after day.

So with that in mind, which three things do you need to do to bring you more into balance?