What is the difference between a manager and a leader? What qualities are needed for a successful manager? Is it more important to be an effective leader or to be able to manage? This article will answer these questions.
Leader – who is he?
It is not enough to be well educated and able to organize people to become a leader in the modern world. Finding the right team lead or senior manager is an incredibly difficult task for recruiters and HR managers. Because companies need not just a competent person but someone who can inspire, motivate, support, and guide the team. You can’t become a leader overnight. You need to develop it in yourself for a long time. A leader is a person who is not afraid to make difficult decisions and responsibilities, is ready to be flexible and able to adapt to circumstances, and knows how to motivate a team and lead a project to success.
Manager and leader: what is the difference?
Leadership is not management. Management is focused on getting people to do the right thing, while leadership is focused on getting people to do the right thing. Many features determine an effective management style, but the most obvious of them are the individual characteristics of the leader (character, values, experience, formal authority), his followers, and the specific situation. Leadership is always a process of interaction with specific people, not in a vacuum, but specific circumstances.
Based on his professionalism, skills, and abilities, the manager focuses on decision-making and minimizes the options for solving the problem based on his experience. At the same time, the leader tries to develop new and ambiguous ways to solve the problem. After solving a problem, managers venture into new issues, especially if there is a chance to receive adequate rewards. Most leaders have leadership qualities but do not show them in practice.
Common requirements for the manager as a leader
The manager’s position formally creates the necessary prerequisites for the leader to be the team leader but does not automatically make him one. For example, you can be the first person in the organization but not be the leader because he should not be approved by order but psychologically recognized by those around him as the only one who can ensure the satisfaction of their needs. To do this, a person who claims to be a leader must have a clear vision of the future and ways to move towards it.
Any person who claims to be a leader in a team must have a set of leadership qualities. The main qualities and personality traits that a manager who wants to become a leader should have are:
- dominance, the desire to influence other people;
- self-confidence;
- self-control, emotional balance, and stress resistance;
- creativity or the ability to be creative;
- purposefulness, striving to achieve the goal;
- entrepreneurial spirit, willingness to take reasonable risks;
- decisiveness, willingness to take responsibility;
- reliability in relations with subordinates, management, and clients; – sociability, ability to work with people;
- the ability to maximize employees’ capabilities through their proper placement and motivation.
To achieve authority, it is necessary to understand the direction, be a source of valuable and helpful information, and possess skills that are inaccessible to the majority. The leader is well acquainted with the tasks that each team member performs. Initially, you need to earn a good reputation and only then move on.