Your business might be generating satisfactory profits, and you might be pleased with your employees’ performance – and you’d think it’s because you’re a good manager or a team leader – you’re right. But, there’s a bit more it than that.
Have you ever thought of leading your business than just managing it? Have you ever realized the potential your business can unleash if you take up the role of a leader?
To begin with, there are differences between a manager and a leader. A manager gets people to work correctly on the delegated tasks. In comparison, a leader inspires them through exemplary character and personality. The manager dictates his subordinates, and a leader empowers them to take their path and reach goals.
It’s interesting to note that a manager usually has a myopic vision and is limited to specific business functions, but a leader has a more holistic approach to the entire business landscape.
Management functions tend to overwhelm managers, and their leadership acumen disperses. It restricts their transformation from a manager to a leader. However, the transition from a manager to a leader can radically affect your business. This article discusses some of those effects.
You start strategizing
You might have studied business strategies in your leadership degrees, but they are not always simple to implement. One thing is for sure that you cannot strategize and implement the right business tactics while only being a manager. It would help if you had leadership attributes. Once you undergo the transition from a manager to a leader, you start incorporating the necessary competitive ingredients to devise the most appropriate strategy.
Your business becomes more competitive and considerate of the market forces. Better strategies make your business more viable in the long term. This is especially true in the current business environment of the digital war; your business needs a leader’s eye to understand the market.
Only a leader’s holistic view can equip your business with the right balance of traditional and modern-day business tactics.
You develop the balance of being a specialist and a generalist
Managers are responsible for a particular business function and department. They focus on a specific area and develop specific expertise in it. By comparison, a leader tends to absorb the business dynamics on the whole.
A manager cannot have a generalist overview and assimilate different business forces to understand external stimuli, but a leader makes himself aware of all those forces.
The most significant effect it has on your business is in terms of decision-making and problem-solving skills. Both these domains become quick, more accurate, and yield better results. For better decision making, you need both the specialist as well a generalist view of business dynamics.
It would help if you had both the acumens for better problem solving since the problem overlaps more than one business function in most cases. A leader can understand these differences in a better way. Therefore, a leader can project better decision-making and problem-solving skills.
You develop leadership at all levels
Never confuse yourself that leadership only resides within the C-level suite of management. Successful businesses are those where leadership resides at all levels of the organization in its capacity. Every employee is a leader in his/her area. However, an organizational culture that promotes empowerment is necessary to enable leadership development at these different levels.
Your business enjoys positive effects as a result of such an organizational culture. However, only leaders can promote such a culture. Managers cannot inspire people and move them towards leadership development.
The transition from a manager to a leader is not just the transition of the manager. It is the transition of the employees as well. They become followers instead of just subordinates.
Your business becomes more resilient
Resilience to the adverse external environment is necessary to ensure long-term business viability. Managers are caught up with their routine functions of planning, organizing, staffing, and controlling. Therefore, they tend to ignore fundamental external business forces that can prove destructive for it. A leader is more concerned about the overall business health than just routine tasks. Therefore, he considers these external forces with more care and analysis. Once you have a firm grip on these factors, your business develops more resilience against disruptive external forces.
We have seen in recent times in the wake of the pandemic that so many businesses have gone bankrupt. It is because they had less resilience and could not stand external pressure. According to a survey, 77% of organizations suffered a leadership gap in 2019. Well, that’s quite evident from the downfall most businesses saw in that year too.
Through strong leadership, you can only save your business from such external shocks as the Covid-19 pandemic. Therefore, the transition of managers to leaders has a significant effect on the resilience of your business.
Final Thoughts
Humans are constantly evolving. They sense, adapt, and change. Similarly, it would help if you perceived the business needs according to the modern-day industry dynamics. You must adapt according to current requirements to ensure a competitive edge for your business.
Then comes the transition. Once you have integrated all these attributes into the right balance, you must transform yourself. You become a business leader than just a manager. You start taking accountability for your actions and inspiring people to enter their next step. Instead of managing people, you start leading them. Now you don’t talk the walk but actually, walk the walk.
