5 Qualities of Remarkable Bosses

I just finished reading an incredible article on managing staff on Inc Magazine.  It was written by Jeff Haden and is called 5 Qualities of Remarkable Bosses.  It is available here; http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/the-5-qualities-of-remarkable-bosses.html 

I’m a huge fan of strong, successful management in organizations especially in light of the fact that every organizations’ most precious commodity is its people.  It’s always been said that “people don’t leave jobs, they leave managers”.

But if you have not clicked that link yet, and you’re still reading, here are the 5 qualities according to Jeff, and to be honest, the reason this article resonated with me is because some of this stuff he mentions can be taught – they teach you in graduate school – while other skills you either have or you do not.  I try each and every day to make sure I am aligned with these qualities and I think if you don’t do these, you really should.  

“Remarkable bosses aren’t great on paper. Great bosses are remarkable based on their actions”.

Here are the 5 according to Jeff…

1. Develop every employee.

I totally agree here that it is the managers responsibility to train, coach, mentor and provide learning opportunities for each and every employee.  By doing this you are showing your employees on a daily basis that they matter and it makes their days better which produces more productive and comfortable employees.  The organization wins here because they are getting constant feedback instead of having to wait for the twice a year formal performance appraisal process.

2. Deal with problems immediately.

Nothing kills team morale more quickly than problems that don’t get addressed. Interpersonal squabbles, performance issues, feuds between departments… all negatively impact employee motivation and enthusiasm and are extremely distracting, because these problems never go away.

As we all know, small problems always grow into bigger problems.  It’s best to not count on the fact that these problems will go away, because at the end of the day someone has to deal with it.  It should be the manager, dealing with the issue head-on, no matter how small.

3. Rescue your worst employee.

Almost every business has at least one employee who has fallen out of grace: Publicly failed to complete a task, lost his cool in a meeting, or just can’t seem to keep up. Over time that employee comes to be seen by his peers—and by you—as a weak link.  Before you consider removing the “dixie cup” from the group, put your full effort into trying to rescue that person instead.   Step up the mentoring and coaching you provide.  A struggling employee has tons of upside; rescue him and you make a tremendous difference. 

4. Serve others, not yourself.

As a remarkable manager you do not need the spotlight.  you have it already.  Your staff, on the other hand, need all the recognition they can get, and face time with senior manager is even more important and their level, so no matter what you to, do not try to take credit for something they have done.  The staff know your contribution and support to them, your team and the organization and trust me, if you’re doing that well, senior management already knows it too.   

When employees excel, you and your business excel. When your team succeeds, you and your business succeed. When you rescue a struggling employee and they become remarkable, remember they should be congratulated, not you.

You were just doing your job the way a remarkable boss should.

5. Always remember where you came from.

I came from an organization which, in my opinion, had terrible management practices, and I went to an organization which had amazing management presence and I took with there all my past experiences about how to not treat employees and made sure not to do any of it. 

I am also very aware of what it’s like being the “new guy” and how people look at you and over time come to get to know you and realize how much you can add to an organizaiton so I make it a policy to always engage the newest employees, ask them questions, talk to them, show them around and give them a work buddy so they don’t ever have to experience that feeling I went through.

I remember where I came from and I know what I hated so it is the responsibility of a remarkable boss to make sure it doesn’t happen again.  Personally, I also try to remember a fact or 2 about each and every employee I come across – along with the correct pronunciation of their names.  It means a lot and it allows me to have a conversation with them beyond “how’s the weather”.

So if you take a step back and look at the support you get from your boss – directly or indirectly – you probably already know what you like about their style and what needs improvement.   Don’t forget the good when thinking about the bad.  for all you know your manager could be trying to improve that too.

Managing – Internal communication. Keeping staff engaged.

What forms of communication work best with your staff and within your organization?  Besides the usual suspects, being email, phone and video conferencing, what do you use to keep dialogues open and retain information for ease of use or for succession planning?

Here are some of my thoughts and suggestions;

How to use these tools to improve internal communication with and among employees.

I have noticed in my 15 years in industry that many companies are reluctant to adopt social media tools internally and externally for fear of losing control of their message and to protect their brand.  Those who have made the leap are learning that online tools and technologies make it easier to engage employees in more meaningful dialogue.  The result, I find, is improved efficiency, increased collaboration and greater employee engagement as they are creating an environment where employees feel their voices will be heard.  Engaged employees feel valued, and valued employees tend to have more motivation and are happier.

One of the most common ways to engage employees is by keep an up-to-date internal home page for the business or for the business unit.  My tax unit, for example has a neat, organized internal site that we use to store information and anyone in the unit can recommend changes and most can make the changes.  It’s a team page, through and through.  It also serves as the unit’s evolving knowledge base since it is edited and updated collaboratively by the unit   It also houses the latest applicable company announcements, HR information relating to tax, marketing documents, company policies and how-to information.  We recently made part of it public so we could share that information with the rest of the business.

This site works for us because it’s a great archiving tool for tax information.  We try to keep links and documents up to date and the problem of multiple versions of information living all over the place is eliminated.  We are sharing our tax knowledge and spreading the word in real-time.  I have always felt that people who share ideas and their thought process learn and understand faster.  No better form of training exists.

A slightly more advanced tool I like to use is the office messenger service, which only works internally.  It not only allows me to see when someone is at their desk, but when they are in a meeting or busy and do not wish to be disturbed.  Staff use the application to challenge each other, think communally and can have answers within seconds which allows them to continue working through issues and not have to drop it and get back to it at a point in the future (if at all). 

It’s also used for personal discussion, which I’m okay with since it is better than having to get up and walk over and disturb one person or possibly more than that.   I have always felt this tool increases collaboration and allows the staff to learn from each other and it gives them an outlet to ask a question privately which thy may have been too shy or nervous to ask out loud.  With the screen sharing capabilities, staff no longer have to struggle with explaining things, they can share their screen and others can see, learn and help.

My latest pet project is the internal tax blog.  In my opinion, the blog is much like the main page on a sharepoint / Intranet site where news about the company and staff are posted.  It can be used to explain a new tax treaty change or to congratulate a colleague on the birth of their child, with pictures.  Most of the blogs are written by senior management, but other staff do post occasionally, and aren’t shy about chiming in with their opinions.  Case in point, this blog, which is now 3 years old and still a work in progress.  It’s intent was to be the repository for tax changes, tax research and my management style.  Needless to say, it’s not there yet.

I also want this blog, and the internal one to be collaborative too, and provide an outlet for the staff to comment and receive feedback or questions to answer from either the team or the rest of the business.  It’s a great forum for a shy employee who knows a lot to be heard and recognized for their knowledge.

A blog is a also a smart tool to keep employees aware of what’s happening in the company, without overflowing their inboxes.   Everyone should be encouraged to participate because if it is just one or 2 people then it runs the risk of being their opinions and not the facts.

From the IABC Research Foundation’s 2009 survey, some numbers on usage of tools by employers to engage employees.  I’ll bet the numbers have grown considerably in the past 3 years with twitter coming into the mainstream and many corporate missteps through social media. 

Tools used by organizations to communicate with employees:

Blogs: 47%

Discussion boards: 32%

Podcasts: 29%

Videocasts: 28%

Social networks: 27%

Wikis: 26%

 

What tools have you found work for your organization and which will you stay away from?  any stories to share?

Related articles

• Top Communication Methods for Engaging Employees (themarlincompany.com)

Government Waste Awards give Lifetime Achievement to former Toronto Mayor David Miller

The 13th Annual “Teddy” Government Waste Awards Winners were announced by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) last week.

The CTF is a citizen advocacy group dedicated to less waste, lower taxes and responsible government spending of our hard earned dollars.

These awards confirm what I had been saying all along, that a left-wing mayor in the City of Toronto was going to cause an increase in taxes and result in less money in the pockets of Torontonions, as David Miller was given the lifetime achievement award.

Please, read on.

The “Teddy” award is named after Ted Weatherill, a former federal bureaucrat who was fired for outrageous expenses in 1999 (I’ve included his expenses below). Each year the CTF holds the ceremony to recognize a government, public office holder, civil servant, department or agency that most exemplifies government waste.

The winners:

Federal Teddy Winner:
G8/G20 costs: $1.24 billion spent to host leaders from the other G8/G20 nations to ironically discuss how to trim government over-spending.

Provincial Teddy Winner:
Ontario tax collectors paid severance for keeping jobs: Approximately $56-million in severance for changing their business cards from ‘Ontario PST collector’ to ‘Federal HST’ collector.”
These guys moved across the street from 5150 Yonge Street to 5001 Yonge street and were topped up to make up for the fact that the Feds pay less than the province.

Municipal Teddy Winner:
Edmonton City Council for wasting $5,000.00 on a haiku contest. Citizens were asked to write poems (or haikus) about riding the bus, despite already having paid $5,000 to have one written.

Lifetime Achievement Teddy:
David Miller

“And the Lifetime Achievement Teddy goes to…former Toronto Mayor, David Miller, for a career of reckless taxing-and-spending. As Mayor, Miller grew the city’s operating budget by 44 per cent, $2.8 billion, increased the city’s debt by more than $1 billion and increased property taxes every year well beyond the rate of inflation. He fought for and got new taxing powers which he used to impose a host of new taxes, including a: plastic bag tax, garbage tax, car tax, billboard tax, and land transfer tax.”

Concluding the ceremony CTF federal director, Kevin Gaudet remarked, “over the years David Miller has provided so much material for the Teddies we will see if future municipal nominations will suffer with his departure.”

Other nominees included:
Federal – Space Agency/Agriculture Canada: $400,000 for failed “Canadian Content” astronaut food program.

Federal – Border Services Agency Employee: Bureaucrat spends five hours/day at work surfing porn and is not fired.

Federal – National Defence: $515,000 for not conducting security checks on NORAD facility builders.

Federal – Public Works: $550 million for maintenance including $1,000 for removing one light switch.

Federal – Senator Lavigne: $30,000 for expenses – while suspended from the Senate.

Provincial – ON E-Health: $224M for consultant abuse including charges to consult on consulting charges.

Provincial – ON Parks: $400K for Niagara Parks Exec expenses including roller coasters.

Provincial – NS Premier Dexter: $10,600 to expense full membership fees to the bar association, then reducing status to “not practicing” when forced to pay himself.

Provincial – MB Health: $38,000 to build “rooftop oasis” for health bureaucrats while patients down the road fundraise for theirs.

Municipal – Summerside, PEI: $1.3 million for fraudulent Michael Jackson tribute concert.

Municipal – Regina, SK: $5,000 for bizarre sponsorships including $450 for a ‘pickleball tournament.’

Municipal -Richmond, BC: $59 million for city purchase of land for five-times real value to be “as fair as possible.”

Municipal – Toronto, ON: Public transit boss caught expensing $2,400 for taxis.

http://taxpayer.com/node/13985

Now, back to the name of these awards… The “Teddys”, named after Ted Weatherill who was the Chair of the Canada Labour Relations Board since 1989. Between 1995 and 1996, Mr. Weatherill charged at least $21000 to taxpayers for business travel he incurred as President of the National Academy of Arbitrators, an Alabama-based private organization.

“Mr. Weatherill concedes that he could have sent the expenses to the National Academy of Arbitrators…but Mr. Weatherill believed his participation in the NAA’s conferences that year to be a wise investment for the Canada Labour Relations Board. So, he chose to bill his expenses to the Canadian government instead.”
The Ottawa Citizen, 7 April 1997

There’s more than just travel, though. The following is a “taste” of the meals Mr. Weatherill has billed to the Canadian taxpayer over the past eight years:

Breakfast: Relais Christine, Paris $25.00
Meal (for 2): RPG Arpege, Paris $733.43
Dinner: Le Cercle Universitaire d’Ottawa $1 084.40
Room Service (one night): Chateau Frontenac, Québec City $95.27
Meal: Royal Windsor Hotel, Brussels $531.50
Mr. Weatherill billed the federal government on average $18,500 a year in meal costs alone, for a grand total of $148,000 over the first eight years of his ten year term. He has billed the federal government more that $200 for a meal on 107 different occasions since he was hired.

Many of Mr. Weatherill’s lunches have included alcoholic beverages. Treasury Board guidelines state that “reasonable expenses means the specific, itemized expenses incurred, based on receipts, excluding alcohol.”

Promoting tax in your workplace podcast

http://www.pwc.com/ca/en/tax/podcast/index.jhtml

Episode 8 relates to promoting tax in your company and talking tax while educating others in the company and promoting to executives in their language.

Thank you PWC. This was very helpful!

Social Media Code of Conduct

Please read this post;

http://rinkcomms.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/adopt-a-social-media-code-of-conduct/

I totally agree that there is nothing better for brand recognition and respect than having a presence on the web. I also agree that with that presence comes a huge responsibility to keep the brand in the most positive light.

In one of my earlier stops in my taxation career I came across some Twitter comments from a young lady who had started working in one of our US locations and in her tweets she was trashing the company and doing this while sitting at her desk.

I notified IT and she was removed from the company for conduct detrimental to the company.

Bottom line… Don’t be stupid. If you are supposed to be working from home or out of the office don’t update your facebook status. If you want to use your facebook account to post pictures of you getting drunk of half-naked, make sure it’s viewable only by your friends because you don’t want your potential employer at a law firm, CA office, etc. seeing you like that and letting it cloud their judgement of you.

Be smart.

Mentoring

Mentor?  Who needs a mentor?  Seriously…

Well…  I do. A mentor is that person who can help to steer you clear of troubled waters, and help to shed light on the positives when things get rough.  You chose them because they have qualities your desire to learn, develop and nurture.  If you were put in a formal mentoring program then someone else thought you needed to develop certain skills which your mentor possesses.  Use the opportunity to learn, experience, partake and grow as a human and as a businessperson.

But here the thing…

Don’t take a mentor’s advice as the end-all-be-all on whatever topic is being discussed. They are people just like you and me and are capable of being wrong, just like you and me. They may mean well, but sometimes it is better to trust your gut and not your mentor when deciding to move or not move ahead with a business idea. If you have the power to turn your business idea into a success, then why hand the power to turn your idea into a failure over to another person?

I had to ask myself this question recently, after leaving a meeting with a mentor feeling confused and frustrated. The 1^st meeting with my mentor went quite well.  I learned a lot, and was completely overwhelmed at what to learn first.  It appeared there was too much to learn.  How was I ever going to know as much as they do?  Will I ever come close?  The discussion was informative and encouraging.   My mentor was honest about their area of expertise and offered advice from that knowledge base.  It was GREAT!  After the second meeting however, I questioned EVERYTHING and that sucked the confidence right out of me. 

I took a while to think things over from their perspective.  Was that just wasted time  Absolutely not!  The best laid plans can appear to be no-brainers if you don’t have the opportunity to see them from the other side.  Having that chat with my mentor helped me do just that.  Besides, you know your vision and your potential better than anybody.  Appreciate mentors for who they are…  Folks who can provide information to HELP you make a decision. Don’t let them make the decisions for you.  Use them to play devils advocate and tell you how they would do something.  Unless they were in exactly the same situation dealing with the same person, the ball is still in your court.  They want you to succeed as much as you do or they would not have agreed to mentor you.

So for the next session I discussed my fears and concerns and that meeting helped bring everything into context.  I felt so much better. 

Enjoy your mentor, and use them to help you get a better understanding on your strengths and weaknesses and life.

How do others view your managerial skills?

If any of the below traits are those that you show as a manager, you might want to consider finding a way to change them right away.  Your gig may be up…

1. Do you show a bias against action?  There are plenty of reasons for you to not want to make an immediate decision, such as, wanting to wait for more information, to plan more options, seek more opinions or do some research.  Real leaders display a consistent bias for action. People who don’t make decisions make mistakes in who they choose to listen to and the course they take to get an answer.  It’s dangerous and shows the rest of your management team you are not qualified for that position.

2. Secrecy: “Don’t let the staff hear,” is something I hear managers say repeatedly. “They won’t understand” is usually the rationale behind this decision.  If you treat employees like children, they will behave that way — which means trouble. If you treat them like adults, they may just respond likewise. Very few matters in business must remain confidential and good managers can identify those easily. The lover of secrecy has trouble being honest and is afraid of letting peers have the information they need, if they choose to use that information to challenge him.  Secrets make companies political, anxious and full of distrust.  (See government).

3.  Over-sensitivity:  I saw this a ton in the government.  Too much.  “I know she’s always late, but if I raise the subject, she’ll be hurt.” An inability to be direct and honest with staff is a critical warning sign. Can your manager see a problem, address it upfront and move on?  If not, these problems won’t get resolved, instead they will grow.  When managers say staff is too sensitive, they are usually describing themselves.  The bad traits of secrecy and over-sensitivity almost always travel together.

4. Do you have a rather fond love of procedure?  Managers who live and die by the rule book have forgotten that rules and processes exist to speed up business, not ritualized it.  A fond love of procedure often masks a the inability to rank key tasks will get missed while thumbing through the book looking to cover your ass.

5.  Do you have a preference for weak candidates?  Have you ever interviewed candidates for a new position and hired the one with the rawest skills because you may have been threatened by the others?  The super-competent manager knows that you must always hire people smarter than yourself.

6.  Are you a micromanager?  Do you get caught up in the details?  Are you the type that has always produced the perfect charts, forecasts and spreadsheets, is always on time, has work completely up-to-date and always volunteer for projects in which you have no core expertise?  This type of behaviour tells others that you are trying to hide the fact that you could not do your real job and you keep close tabs on everything so that if you are called on something you know it right away.  But by hovering over your direct reports you show them you have no trust in them and they know when you do or do not understand something.  It’s a bad situation all around.

7.  Inability to hire former employees:   Have you hired someone who did not attract any candidates from their old company?  That might tell you that your new hire had not mentored anyone who’d want to work with him again.   Every good manager has alumni, eager to join the team again; if they don’t, smell a rat.

8.  Are you unable to meet deadlines?  A deadline is a commitment. The manager who cannot set, and stick to deadlines, cannot honor commitments. Failure to set and meet deadlines also means that no one can ever feel a true sense of trust in this manager and once that level of trust has been eroded, it spells the beginning of the end for the manager.

9.  Addiction to consultants: A common — but expensive — way to put off making decisions is to hire consultants who can recommend several alternatives. While they’re figuring these out, managers don’t have to do anything. And when the consultant’s choices are presented, the ensuing debates can often absorb hours, days, months. Meanwhile, your organization is poorer but it isn’t any smarter. When the consultant leaves, he takes your money and his increased expertise out the door with him.  It is also so much easier to blame the consultant if something goes wrong than to put your own neck on the line by making that decision.

10.   Long hours:  Bad managers tend to work very long hours.  I suspect they think the rest of the business will think they are super-hard workers, dedicated to their roles, but it is probably the single biggest sign of incompetence.  To work effectively, you must prioritize and you must pace yourself.  The manager who boasts of late nights, early mornings and no time off cannot manage himself so you’d better not let him manage anyone else.

How to start conference call meetings on time!

If you work in an environment where the majority of your meetings are via conference call, you find there is always a delay in getting the meeting started because there is a reminder sent out via email 5 minutes before the meeting and then if that reminder is snoozed, the next reminder comes at the time the meeting is scheduled to begin.  Leaving to call in at that point would make you late.  So if you are chairing the meeting, you wind up penalizing those who came prepared to start at the start time while waiting for the stragglers.

Here are some of my suggestions for starting meetings on time!

1) Plan for it. Put the arrival time on the agenda. For example, for a meeting scheduled to start at 9:00 AM, you could put “8:50 AM – - – Arrive at the Meeting” at the top of the agenda. An arrival time is useful because it allows everyone time to socialize, obtain coffee, or organize materials before the meeting. It also ensures everyone is present at the scheduled starting time.

2) Set an example. Dial in to meetings you schedule before they are scheduled to start.  Use this time to chat with the early birds and allow them to ask questions prior to the meeting that thy may be afraid to ask in a big group.  And you can greet the attendees as they arrive. This helps you appear in control of the meeting process from the beginning. And of course, arrive at everyone else’s meetings on time.

3) Make it easy. Schedule your meetings to begin at odd times, such as 9:10 AM. This allows everyone who was in a one-hour meeting that began at 8:00 AM to run to the bathroom, check their email and put out any fires before jumping on your call.  Similarly, end your meetings at least ten minutes before the next hour so that the attendees have time to do the same before their next meeting.

4) Promote punctuality. Send a memo or an email stressing the importance of arriving on time. Call key attendees to remind them about the starting time for the meeting.  Try to find some reason to be on time, such as asking a senior level executive to make an opening remark, then allowing them to drop off the call, because they are busy, and it sets the tone from the top.

5) Expect promptness. If the meeting is for your team only, you can tell people that they are expected to be on time and tie it into their performance appraisls, or ask your manager to stress it from one level above.  Similarly, arrive on time to demonstrate your commitment.

6) Be realistic. Realize that some people are beyond coaching because of their attitude or relationship with you. Also, recognize that it is impossible to guarantee that everyone will always arrive on time at every meeting. There will always be emergencies, surprises, and those few who refuse to cooperate.

To make this approach the norm you need buy-in from senior management. 

Good luck!

Are you management material?

I found an article online written by F. John Reh, entitled “How to Tell If You Are Management Material” and I read it hoping to see if it would shed some clues into why I have always thought I was.  The article, however, was a little more on the comical side then I had hoped for. 

The author presents a top ten list, David Letterman style, of clues that you are management material.  Read it as there is some truth mixed into the humour, then we’ll have a real discussion about what I think are clues;

• 10. You like not doing anything.
• 9. You have no trouble telling others what to do
• 8. Work fascinates you – you can sit and watch it for hours
• 7. You like ‘sweating the small stuff’
• 6. You have always been something of a loner
• 5. You don’t think ‘plan’ is a four-letter word
• 4. Your favorite cocktail is milk of magnesia
• 3. On Halloween you dress up as Alex P. Keating
• 2. Your favorite horror writer is Tom PetersAnd the number one clue you are management material -
• You enjoy having people despise you just for doing your job.

There is some truth to a few items on his list, but I think they can all be managed through perception.  Being aware of how others perceive you goes a long way towards you being able to manage that perception.  Even if you have no one else to help you, you should still be aware as to the basics expected of you by your staff.  For example;

The management style of yelling and berating staff is so 1980′s and is no longer an effective tool… Unless you want your staff to hate you.  Also unpopular among staff is the perception that they do way more work than you.  That should never happen.  Not only do you have a job to do as a manager but you are also required to lead a team, think strategically and get stuff done to a higher level on some very short time frames.  Not that I recommend whining to staff about it, they don’t know what you do all day, but sharing information with them helps them buy into the job, and feel that they are an important piece in the company.  Nothing is wrong with telling your staff your thoughts and suggestions to make their lives better.  I believe they actually appreciate it.

As for the perception of doing nothing or the concept of being hated for doing your job, I think these 2 go hand-in-hand.  If you sit in your office reading the paper, but then go home and put in 5 hours in the evening, no one is going to know about the extra work, but everyone will know about the perceived slacking during the day.  Be strategic.  If you must read the news during the day, do it online!

So back to the clues…  Here is my top 10 list;

10. You have a bigger vision of the way the company can operate more efficiently

9. You offer suggestions and ask questions surrounding process improvements and operational improvements

8. You enjoy helping others get work done and see them praised for it.

7. You are eager to achieve recognition of you direct manager and peers, in the good way. 

6.  Being respected is important.  Being a team player, also important.  Put team goals first.

5. You are able to act as a team leader / manager naturally

4. You have passion – for your current job, for the company, for everyone doing a good job.

3. You are flexible.  You can work in different areas, understand what others have to do and can thrive in your area of expertise or somewhere where you have no knowledge of the work required. 

2. You keep emotion out of the workplace

1. You treat everyone in the manner you want to be treated… With respect!  Explain to the level of understanding.  Be empathetic.  If you ever want people to work for you, and I mean WORK for you, you have to be understanding that they have lives beyond work and in their lives there are stresses.  Don’t be one too.

My thoughts… What would you add?

Leadership vs. Management

It’s always good to know the difference and what to expect from your Team Leader and from your Manager, or if already in a management role, what others expect from you…

In my opinion, the biggest difference between managers and leaders is the way they motivate the people who work or follow them, and this sets the tone for most other aspects of what they do.

Many people do both.  They are in a management position, but they realize you need buy-in from everyone in order to go down a difficult road, so they lead too.

The main difference…  Managers have subordinates.  Managers also have a position of authority vested in them by the company, and their subordinates work for them and largely do as they are told.  Management style is this case is considered transactional, because the the manager tells the subordinate what to do, and the subordinate does it in exchange for salary.   Managers are paid to get things done too, often within tight constraints of time and money, thus they naturally pass along work to their subordinates.

Another interesting finding relating to managers is that they tend to come from stable home backgrounds and lead relatively normal and comfortable lives.  This generally leads them to be relatively risk-averse and they seek to avoid conflict, whenever possible.  They like their personal and professional lives to mirror each other as they aim to run a “happy ship’.

Leaders… Have followers, not subordinates, at least not when they are leading. Many organizational leaders do have subordinates, but only because they are also managers. But when they want to lead, they have to give up formal authoritarian control, because to lead is to have followers, and following is always a voluntary activity.  Telling people what to do generally will not inspire them to follow you.  In order to build a following, you have to find a way to appeal to them by showing how following them will work out for you and for them.  They must want to follow you enough to stop what they are doing and perhaps walk into dangerous situations which they would not normally consider risking.

Leaders who have diplomacy and some charisma find it easier to attract people to their cause.  As a part of their persuasion they typically promise transformational benefits, such that their followers will not just receive extrinsic rewards but will somehow become better people, and enjoy the trip.

Although many leaders have a charismatic style to some extent, this does not require a loud personality. Good leaders are always very good with people, and they almost automatically give credit to others (and takes blame on themselves) which makes them very effective at creating loyalty that great leaders engender.

Although leaders are good with people, this does not mean they are friendly with them.  In order to keep the mystique of leadership, they often retain a degree of separation and aloofness.  separating office life from home to the greater extent helps.  Not hanging out with your staff / subordinates also helps set you apart.

This does not mean that leaders do not pay attention to tasks – in fact they are often very achievement-focused.  What they do realize, however, is the importance of empowering others to work towards their vision.

Earlier I mentioned that managers tend to be risk-averse, and to that point, leaders appear to be more along the lines of risk-seekers, not to be confused with thrill-seekers.  When pursuing their vision, leaders consider it natural to encounter problems and hurdles that must be overcome along the way.  They are thus comfortable with risk and will see routes that others avoid as potential opportunities for advantage and will happily break rules in order to get things done.

A surprising number of these leaders had some form of handicap in their lives which they had to overcome. Some had traumatic childhoods, some had problems such as dyslexia, some were overweight as a child, had acne, low self-esteem, or were shorter than average.  The overcoming of this event perhaps taught them the independence of mind that is needed to go out on a limb and not worry about what others are thinking about you.

The table below summarizes the above (and more) and gives a sense of the differences between being a leader and being a manager.  This is, of course, an illustrative characterization, and there is a whole spectrum between either ends of these scales along which each role can range and many people lead and manage at the same time, and so may display a combination of behaviors.

Subject	Leaders	Managers
Essence	Change	Stability
Focus	Leading people	Managing work
Have	Followers	Subordinates
Horizon	Long-term	Short-term
Seeks	Vision	Objectives
Approach	Sets direction	Plans detail
Decision	Facilitates	Makes
Power	Personal charisma	Formal authority
Appeal to	Heart	Head
Energy	Passion	Control
Dynamic	Proactive	Reactive
Persuasion	Sell	Tell
Style	Transformational	Transactional
Exchange	Excitement for work	Money for work
Likes	Striving	Action
Wants	Achievement	Results
Risk	Takes	Minimizes
Rules	Breaks	Makes
Conflict	Uses	Avoids
Direction	New roads	Existing roads
Truth	Seeks	Establishes
Concern	What is right	Being right
Credit	Gives	Takes
Blame	Takes	Blames