Category: Leadership (Page 9 of 10)

• The manager administers; the leader innovates.
• The manager maintains; the leader develops.
• The manager accepts reality; the leader investigates it.
• The manager focuses on systems and structures; the leader focuses on people.
• The manager relies on control; the leader inspires trust.
• The manager has a short-range view; the leader has a long-range perspective.
• The manager asks how and when; the leader asks what and why.
• The manager has his or her eye always on the bottom line; the leader has his or her eye on the horizon.
• The manager imitates; the leader originates.
• The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it.
• The manager is the classic good soldier; the leader is his or her own person.

I believe every business needs great leaders and great managers! Trying to segregate the functions of a leader from that of a manager is very problematic. Most people can have some qualities of leadership in one area, but not in others. Does that make them a leader or not?

I guess the key question as always is; what am I doing to become a better leader?

Quote from Warren Bennis

Agree, disagree, have a question? – Post a comment now.

BOOM! The door flew open, they burst into the house and within seconds seemed to occupy every space. The noise told of chaos and energy blended into one. Immediately the tranquillity was replaced with a racket that would rival a sonic boom over Canterbury. Then I realised they were searching for me, I knew I didn't have long till they found me. After an extended period of silence I knew my time was up. My family just got home.

Was that 1 1/2 hours I ask myself? Where did that time go? I was planning to make it productive time, nailing a few things before my week began but instead I had surfed the net randomly and enjoyed for the most part, the silence. On this occasion my thoughts were not clearer as I lacked the disciplined thought that should accompany silence to make it productive. It was relaxing nonetheless.

I am reminded that I function better when I have times of silence and solitude. I seem to live with audio cluttering much of my life through radios, tv, mp3 and people. I love music and audio and conversation but there are times when I need to mute them and have space to focus my thoughts.

When I have times of quiet I usually manage to assimilate my small thoughts and ideas that I continually have and make them into a coherent and better thought-out plan. Without times of silence, solitude and disciplined thought, I don't see the big picture, the related priorities and I become driven by the small things. Yesterday during my time of silence I just relaxed. Today, as I head to Wellington, I will make some thinking time happen and see what happens…

"It is the translation of the grand strategy down into what people do every day, and be caring about what they do that is the single biggest challenge that faces every company." And I suggest every leader. It is certainly one of the biggest challenges that I face on an ongoing basis. I find this quote from a CEO who took part in the Covey 4 Disciplines course stimulates me often to assess how I am going as a leader. Frequently accepted wisdom would say just set the big goal, go for it, let the people do the work. Often however this doesn't cut it.

Last week while discussing a project it became apparent that we had not yet thought through a key part of the new project. There was an inherent risk that we get to project completion and then find we had missed some key thinking for the process. It is not the first time, nor the first project that this has happened with. Being more than a little deflated that such a critical component had been looked over, I head into this week with a hankering to nail off my part in leading and delivering great projects, and this brings me back to the quote.

It has three parts, "grand strategy", you need to have one prior to doing anything else; "translation of the strategy into what people do each day", this is about breaking our goals down to a level that people understand exactly what to do; "caring about what they do", this means really caring and caring can only really be shown by spending time with them. Three parts, and as I critically review myself, I am doing decidedly averagely at all three! I have therefore planned a focus day to clear the head and determine again what is wildly important.

I am encouraged that 'translation' and 'caring' are the single biggest issue facing every company and leader. I am not the only person to struggle with this dimension of leadership. We have all worked for leaders, even stunning leaders that fail to continually set clear goals, help you break them down and care about how you are going as precisely as they should.

To conclude, a friend txt me a quote from Churchill in the weekend. "Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm" – Hitting failure after failure enthusiastically – hmm.

Imagine being an Airport firefighter in Alaska, on Tuesday I meet a guy who had done that job. In fact imagine being an airport firefighter anywhere. Generally it would be monotonous existence, clean the fire truck, drive down the runway to get for foreign objects (these are not people who stowaway…), do the odd plane crash drill, but then generally you sit around waiting for a plane to crash, nice! The job almost contrasts that of a domestic firefighter who fights fires, attends motor vehicle crashes, cleans up floods and nails roofs down. In their spare time they educate kindergarten kids, check buildings and hydrants, and play table tennis.

For the record if I had to choose I would be an airport firefighter, after all I would get to see heaps of planes and that perk compensates significantly for the boredom. To be candid, I feel like a domestic firefighter at the moment, bouncing from one fire to another, attending to accidents, cleaning up issues and nailing things down. In my spare time I try to educate some people, work on the building and have some fun. I feel like I 'flick' from one thing to another.

My dilemma is this; it is not my agreed function to be a domestic firefighter and being one comes at the expense of strategy and leadership development. When I don't develop leaders and give strong leadership, my team are ill equipped to lead their teams, when this happens we all seem to get more involved in fighting fires.

Anyway back to another day at the fire station…

NEWSFLASH – Just heard that Noamz had her baby! How cool is that!

PS – If you want to check out the pre-launch developments for the logistics opinions page go to andrewnicol.net\logistics

My excitement at the prospect of a day being drilled for information was at an all time high. I mean how could I not be excited, reviewing documents, reviewing the documents again, answering questions about the documents, and then putting spin, spin and more spin on things. Ooh, I couldn't wait! You have to admit you would be about as excited as a four year old off to the dentist.

So this morning before we went, I cut the numbers just a couple more ways just for the hang of it. You would think I'd learn, but well yeah you'll get used to me. Cherie arrived (5:30am), Rob left (had a 5am meeting with him) and we packed off for Auckland and our BIG audit for one of the accreditation processes of the week. Anyway the dentist wasn't at all that bad, and thanks to all the work Cherie has put in, we passed and passed stunningly well!

So anyway back to the big fight, in the red corner Andrew the Entrepreneur, and in the blue corner Andrew the Manager. Who will win? Will Mr Risk or Mr Conservative win? Yip once again it was Andrew the Entrepreneur. Couldn't help myself, I believe passionately in our mission, and what we stand for. I know my team are prepared to fight to win, and that the intelligence and leadership in our business will pull it off.

So the winner is neither Mr Entrepreneur or Mr Manager. The winner is team Agoge!