How do you define the difference
between leading a business and managing it?
Leading is realising the vision and
taking all stakeholders with you.
It’s about knowing how to take
calculated risks and then getting everyone on board to move with you.
Knowing where to invest resources for
growth, whatever that growth is.
Leadership is about ensuring the
company is a good business – that it’s ethical, the right people and plan are
in place to take the business where it needs to go.
Managing is making sure that the
resources deliver a good return on investment and realistic
goals are achieved i.e. time, machinery, people etc. A lot of these
resources will soon be outsourced in businesses of the
future. Best supplier management understanding will be needed to
fulfil this.
Is leadership and management mutually exclusive? Should small business owner/managers attempt to combine the two or excel at just one?
Sometimes, by the
nature and size of business, the leader is the manager. As
organisations become smaller and flatter, then the leader/leadership team will
have to manage.
There are, of course, pros & cons
to that in itself.
But management should become easier
as jobs/roles/functions are outsourced. The outsourced function is
managed in its own right. It will be quality control/assurance that
grows.
Should good leaders always surround themselves with excellent managers?
Why would a leader surround themselves
with managers who don’t perform or deliver?
Managers of the future will need to
become very solution driven to ensure continued performance.
Has the culture of business today meant more leaders or managers are needed to ensure commercial success in the marketplace?
Yes and No.
One leader can make the most
commercially successful business in the market place. But there will be
smaller businesses doing many more outsourced activities so in affect more
business leaders.
I’m a big advocate of technology and
strongly believe that technology today enables you to do more with less
people. So yes more leaders and no.
What do you think the future of business leadership and management looks like?
I believe that businesses are going
to become smaller and that they’ll be based on the theory of a shamrock
organisation, which was predicted over 30 years ago.
The term was invented by Irish
academic and management author/philosopher Charles Handy.
I studied management for six years,
and as part of that, I read ‘The Age of Unreason’ by Charles Handy in 1990, and
I’ve lived by his views the whole of my career. The book is more relevant today
than it ever was. It’s hugely progressive, as was my management thinking at the
time, I was only 21 when I read it.
We will not survive unless we adapt
to the way the world is changing. This book is an inspiring vision of an era of
new discoveries, new enlightenment and new freedoms.
Leadership will be about the
disruption of where to take these smaller companies; taking the best ideas and
then how to deliver it.
Managing will be different because
more of resources will be outsourced, and probably across different continents
Are there any tools that leaders and managers can use to improve their skills?
Yes. Many.
I regularly help businesses
declutter and process map, become objective and goal driven.
Stop wasting time on
superfluous activity.
Invest in:
Self-development through
Apps
YouTube
Other
peers
Mentors
Coaches
Reading
Listening
Any other comments you would like to make?
You can learn a lot from great
leaders.
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