S1 E2: Managing vs. Leading

Good morning, leaders. Wake up, smell the coffee. It's 6:30 in the morning somewhere in the world. Welcome to the Irreverent, Bold, Unfiltered podcast and videocast about leadership. You want to move your career to the next level? Look nowhere else. You found the right place. Let's get going, shall we? All right, all right, all right. So, this is the first real episode. We had a couple of episodes to discuss a bit the Overall format and rules and regulation of the podcast. So this is this is it now. So what's the topic? So thanks for the vote. It was pretty unanimous that you wanted you know to talk about managing versus leading, or manager versus leader, or management versus leadership. The fact that the activity The personification are different seems to indicate that we're talking about 2 very different things. And I think that that's fair. Management and leadership are different. But as I was thinking about it for the next between 35 and 40 minutes, 45, it's not scripted. So, I don't know exactly how long it's going to take, but I decided to have 3 chapters. So, chapter 1 is going to be about, is it an or or is it a and? Do you need to be a manager or a leader, a manager and a leader? I think we can have a good debate and conversation about that. And we'll talk about also in chapter 1 about what are they. What is management? What is leadership? Because you cannot really discuss, you know, when to do what if you're not talking about what is it that it is in the first place. Chapter 2, we are going to talk a lot more about What does it take to be a manager? And of course, a good one. Or what does it take? What does it look like to be a leader? How do you get there? How do you become those things? So that's chapter 2. Chapter 3 is going to be a lot more about the when. When leader, when manager, when managing, when leading. We're going to talk about that. 3 chapters. Is it the or and then the and? And what is it? Chapter 2, which is a lot more about how do you become those things. Chapter 3, which is when do you do those things. So, let's go. Chapter 1. I think And this one is not necessarily a big debate. Is it an or? Is it an and? I would say that, of course, it's an and. It's not like one is something to do and the other one is not something to do. At times, you have to be a leader. At times, you have to be a manager. At times, you have to be leading. At times, you have to be managing. And actually, I would argue that it's not even Only in the professional world. It's in the personal world as well. It's in the life world that you have those 2 things that are balancing out. But are they mutually exclusive? Are they combined? Um, well, we'll talk about that. So let's, you know, let's not debate. It's an end, right? That it's an end. But first, what are they? Are they very different? And what are they? And what I thought about is taking examples that kind of resonate. Is there things that you can only manage or things— when I say things, it's in a broad sense, it's things, people, stuff, or things and stuff that You can only lead in things that are actually a mixture. Let's go straight into funny example. Well, funny, I'm not sure if it's funny, but better example nonetheless. The first example is, hey, I'm a program manager in Company A, and my role is to manage tasks and activities. Sounds great, right? That sounds very legit. Let me replace manage by lead. Hey, I'm a project manager in Company C, and my role is to lead tasks and activities. It kind of makes sense, but it's like, eh, you're not a project manager. Because you manage tasks and activities, right? So, well, here are stuff, but mainly is things that you manage. Let's take another example. Hey, uh, I'm the team captain of my sports team T, and my role is to lead my teammates and the team To achieve the desired outcome. Okay, that makes sense. Let's switch words. Hey, I'm the team captain of my sports team T, and my role is to manage my teammates and my team to achieve the desired outcome. Brrr, doesn't sound right. It makes sense. It's, uh, Okay sentence, but it's not what your role is as a team captain. Okay? Example number 3. Hey, I'm a head of a function in Company C, and my role is to manage people and to manage that organization. Let's swap. Hey, I'm the head of function in Company C, and my role is to lead people and lead my organization to achieve desired outcome. Both are fine. It's an and, and overlapping and mixing each other, right? So I think what's important here to retain is there are things you manage, there are things you lead, and there are things that can be managed and led. And that's why it's so complex because then it's up to you to know what to do in which circumstances. That's why it's not an easy topic. So, what is management and what is leadership? You can Google and you'll find a few things. And I try to be as concise as possible, things that can stick and that you can remember that can be helpful every day. And here is where I kind of sum it up. Management is coping with complexity. Management Is coping with complexity. Leadership is coping with change. Leadership is coping with change. I think that's— you can't have over-definition, but these are really, at least for me, and I hope for you, very resonating. It's like, okay, management, equal managing, equal coping with complexity. Leadership equals coping with change. Okay, what does that mean? Let's think about what would happen if I don't do that. Okay, management is coping with complexity. So if I'm not managing complexity, what happens? Chaos. Complexity that is not managed is chaotic. It creates chaos. If you manage complexity, what you bring is order and consistency, predictability, execution. So yeah, management is definitely about coping with complexity. Leadership is coping with change. Yeah, because expecting— doing the same thing again and again and expecting different outcomes, it's attributed to Albert Einstein, is the definition of insanity. That's what we believe he said, and totally resonating. So you need change. And change, although we talk about change management, But leadership is about coping with change. You may have, as we've seen in the previous example, overlaps between the 2 activities. But leadership is basically coping with change. Now here is the trick. There is no organization that is not complex. There is no organization that doesn't need change. So organization needs both, and they need their leaders/managers to be able to do both, right? That's why you need to be good at both in order to be successful in your career and understand what that means. The best analogy I can take at this point, and you'll see in various episodes that I'm often using military analogy, that's coming from the fact that even if I didn't spend a long time, I spent some time in the French Army. And it was basically my first management role and my first leader role. And that's why it stuck with me. And it, you know, the impact of your actions can be definitely translating into life or death. And when you think about it, you can and you will manage military and an army in a time of peace. You have to know where to put things, how many of what you need where, and how to make sure that things are staying on track in time of peace or when not engaged in combat. Military is something that you manage. Trying to manage people to combat, that don't work. You lead people to war. I would even argue, here is a bold statement, and we say we're going to have bold, here is a bold statement. There's other reasons, but I think that the main reason why World War I and World War II were so different in the way that they ran, although when you think about it, they were pretty similar in duration, is that in World War I, the people The generals on all sides, and try to think about names, it's not easy, but the leaders were actually not leaders, they were managers. And because of that, they ended up stuck in the mud, literally stuck in trenches, gaining meters, yards. And losing them the day after, awful situation because that war was managed. World War II was led on all sides. You remember the names. I'm not going to tell them because some of them are really people that I don't want to promote, but. It was a war of leaders and it was a very, very different way of running, both awful, both things that we need to avoid. But in my mind, that's different because you lead people to war, you don't manage them to war. But what are the tasks in the professional world? And by the way, if you don't like the military analogy, Mahatma Gandhi, right? Nonviolence. Look at what it did. Look at what it led to, literally getting basically the most powerful empire at the time, the British Empire, out of one of the biggest countries of the world without any violence. That's leadership in action. What are the tasks between management and leadership in a professional world? Planning, budgeting. As soon as I hear that, you're in management mode. Oh, I'm going to plan how much of what we need where and budget for it because I know the unit price. And you are managing planning and budgeting. Organizing and staffing. How many of which people do I need? Where? Organizing and staffing, management task. Controlling. Okay, well, where am I against my revenue target? Controlling, that's management. Problem solving. Oh my gosh, my products are not selling because the products are not ready. How do I work with the people in the product organization? You're management. You're managing, planning, budgeting, organizing, staffing, organizing, controlling, problem solving. That's management. Excuse my French, but getting shit done is management. All the things that I just said is getting shit done. It's execution. That's management. Leadership. What is it? Motivating, inspiring. Versus controlling. Oh, now you're leading. Motivating and inspiring is not the opposite. I don't want opposition here, but is the leadership activities that in the management world are called controlling and problem solving, setting direction, leadership. Leading. What's the management activity? Planning. One is, hey, we want to do this and that in that context. I'm setting direction. The other one is how I'm going to get there. I'm going to plan for it. Aligning people, making sure that people understand where we're going. That's a leadership activity. What's the management activity against it? Planning. Well, it's staffing, right? How many of what do I need where? So hopefully it's helpful. Before I close chapter 1, let me make a very bold statement. My bold statement is that most companies worldwide, it's not a corporate America thing, it's not a very different across countries and type of companies. I think there are some differences maybe, but it's very similar across the world is that most companies are overmanaged and underled. So they have too much of planning, budgeting, organizing, staffing, controlling, problem solving. Versus motivating, inspiring, setting direction, aligning people. I think you'd agree with me. It's easier to do on a startup. That's why, oh, leaders, great leaders in a startup. Yeah, it's— as soon as you grow, management is kicking in, right? And again, my bold statement, most companies are overmanaged and underled. Chapter two. How do you become a manager? How do you become a leader? Our organization helping people becoming one or the other. Again, in my trying to simplify things mood, here is the two sentences. Here are the two sentences. You train manager and you develop leader. You train manager and you develop leader, right? That's why in order to become a better manager, you have enablement function. I'm going to teach you how. to do the job. Sales enablement, technical enablement. By the way, management and leadership, it doesn't require that you're in a management or leadership position. We're all leading at every level, right? Maybe something that we're going to do in part 2. I think that this topic requires many parts. You train a manager, you develop a leader. That's why we're using different functions. I just talked about enablement function, usually in specific function, specific department. Develop leader is LDP. LDP, one of, you know, lingo, corporate lingo, leadership development program. It's usually held by HR because it doesn't matter which function you are. Leadership skills are very similar across all functions versus how you do the job is very specific to the function. So, when you build or design an organization or when you try to assess a company, how many enablement organizations do we have and how many Leadership development function do we have? That will give you a pretty good sense of is it overmanaged and underled or not. But here is the good news in everything I just said: they both can be acquired. It's not in the DNA. Yeah, there are DNA aspects. And the most common mistake is to think that every leader is charismatic and extrovert. No, you can be a very introvert, non-vocal leader. So, some DNA aspects help you becoming faster manager or becoming faster leader, but both can be acquired. Stop the legend that leaders are born and managers are trained. That's not true. But how do you recognize leadership in action? What category— what characterizes a leader? What characterizes a manager? All right, let's try to simplify and be bold again. Courage and tenacity, 2 things of leaders and leadership. Really, it requires courage and it requires tenacity. To lead. Why? Let's go back to chapter one. Management is coping with complexity. Leadership is coping with change. Change ain't easy. People don't like change. Even the people who said, "Hey, I'm a change agent," and I've been saying that for most part of thirty-five years. BS on me. It's like, yeah, you may be a change agent, but you still don't like change because change is hard, because change is painful, because you don't know, because there's a lot of uncertainty. So it requires a lot of courage and tenacity to lead. And here is the thing that is interesting. People very often, when you think about leaders and leadership, it's like, oh yeah, you know, large crowd and people following them. And it is very lonely to lead because in the same image, the leader is ahead because he's setting direction, because he's Looking at the change, but the people hopefully are behind him or her. Hopefully. But that person is very alone, is very lonely. So leadership and being a leader takes a lot of courage, takes a lot of tenacity. It feels lonely. It's actually extremely uncomfortable. So don't be afraid of that. When you lead, you'll be uncomfortable, you'll be doubtful, you won't sleep well, but you know it's necessary. Manager, what are the tenets, the equivalent of the courage and tenacity? Structure and execution. Managing things is being extremely structured about the process, the people, everything, the resources that you're going to put in things to get them to where they need to be. It requires planning. It requires a project plan, even if it's not formal. It requires structure. But structure by itself is not enough to be a good manager. You have to have the follow-through, the execution. One is the plan. The other one is the execution. Structure And execution. It doesn't feel lonely. You don't feel alone because actually to be successful as a manager, it's a teaming and collaborating exercise. It's something that you have to do as a team, and you need both. It's always the same thing. Right? You need courage and tenacity without structure and execution, or structure and execution without courage and tenacity, are the yin without the yang. They're not one thing that will make you and your company successful. So you have to master those things. You have to know What it takes. You have to recognize those moments. When you feel that you need a lot of courage and you need to stick with what you said, you're in leadership moment. When you realize that you have to be extremely structured and don't think about anything else than executing against the plan, you're in management structure. Chapter three. When I'm going to make another bold statement, but one of the most stupid sentences that I know is I will find the time to do dot dot dot. I will find the time to think about strategically about where this company is going to go, or I will find the time to really take a deep breath and. Think about the organization in the future. Where did you find time? Seriously? I can guarantee you one thing, there's 24 hours in a day, not 25. Good news is that there is no 23, except once a year where there's 23 and once a year where there's 25, but they equal them out. But time is made, not found. And that's critical for leadership. Why? All right, here it is. And that explains— don't go into the complain mode. Oh well, you said that most companies are overmanaged and underled. It's because people are stupid and my managers are stupid. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's because management is imposed on us. Think about the tasks: planning, budgeting, organizing, problem solving, controlling. These are everyday issues. Because let me tell you, human race, we are very good at one thing: breaking things down and being imperfect. All of this creates a need for a fix. For an issue to be solved, for something to be repaired. These are all management tasks. So, management is imposed on us. It's going to eat all the 24 hours of the day. And you have less than that because you have to sleep and to take care of your family from time to time. So, management is imposed on us. Leadership? No. You have to make the time. We impose leadership on ourselves. One is imposed on us, the other one we impose on ourselves. It's a very active decision that you have to make. Otherwise, you're going to spend your time managing. Let me tell you, there's far enough problems in the world. Whatever your world is, to fill in all the hours and seconds of the day. But you have to impose on yourself leadership moment. Here it is, to finish. Leadership moment. If you work with me, you probably roll your eyes saying, oh my gosh, he's going to talk about leadership moment. Yes, I am. It's a moment where you recognize that you have to move to leadership and that you have to do it very consciously. What are they? You're under attack by the main competitor and you're losing market share and you have to change something. Leadership moment. You're losing 35% of your people for whatever reason. You have to realign them and to motivate them and to inspire them to go to war or to go to whatever the fight is. That is a leadership moment. Military analogy: June 6th, 1944. What do you think it took to convince a bunch of young People, some of them born 7,000 miles away, to jump on a beach in Normandy that is hammered with ammunition on the other side. Does it take management or leadership? Leadership moment. So recognize those leadership moments. where you have to apply leadership skills. You've been prepared, you've been developed for a leader, you've been trained for a manager. When you need motivation, when you need to motivate, inspire, set direction to align people, go into leadership moment, go into leadership mode because it's a leadership moment. Once you're there, let's start about, and let's talk about planning, budgeting, organizing, organizing, staffing. Thinking about KPIs and OKRs, blah, management lingo, and problem solving. You need those skills. That was managing versus leading part 1. I officially declare that we probably need a part 2. I submit that through walk in the park and vote, so you let me know. But let's recap. Managing versus leading, manager versus leader, management versus leadership. We talk about 3 things. Chapter 1, is it or, or is it a hand? It's a hand, no doubt. What are they? Management is coping with complexity. Leadership is coping with change. Organizations need both. Management tasks: planning, budgeting, organizing, staffing, controlling, problem-solving. Leadership tasks: motivating, inspiring, setting direction, aligning people. These are the 2 things. And most companies are overmanaged and underled. Chapter 2, you train a manager, you develop a leader, and they both can be acquired. Being a leader requires courage and tenacity and is very lonely. Manager requires structure and execution in order to be successful, and it's not lonely. It's about team and collaboration. Chapter three: Time is made. Not found. Management is imposed on us. There is more than enough to fill in the entire day. You create leadership moment. Well, you see leadership moment, and you impose on yourself leadership. You're making the time for it. All right. That's all we have today. I think we are somewhere in between 30 and 40 minutes. I think it was a good conversation. You let me know what you think. I asked you in the walk in the park if we need a part 2. Hopefully, maybe with some of you coming to the conversation. Please feel free to comment on LinkedIn if you want, or YouTube if you look at the videocast, or on the various podcast platforms, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Buzzsprout, and others where I'm publishing this podcast. It's been really cool for me to do it. I hope it was useful for you to listen to it. Let's go to work to have a bit of a walk in the park to vote about the next topic. But in the meantime, I thank you. I see you and we'll talk soon. Have a great afternoon, leaders, and knock it out of the park. Never forget that. Bye.