The responsibilities of a manager and a leader have become far clearer in today’s rapidly expanding, increasingly competitive global business environment. I understand that there are always managers who are great leaders, but still the main differences between these positions are evident.
While managers are required to secure their teams by performing the adequate tasks on time, enforcing order, and ensuring that the other employees of the team follow the set rules and guidelines, leaders go further and explain to their subordinates how they may achieve even more.
As this article will focus on how to transition from a manager to a leader, the following section will provide more insight into the practical approaches for managers to become leaders.
Difference Between a Manager and a Leader
The terms manager and leader are used interchangeably and indeed often used as if they are the same kind of role but they are very different concepts. The executive duty of a manager consists in planning and controlling the work of subordinates, increase productivity and quality of the outcomes. Rather, a leader rallies human resources and motivates the subordinates to work towards the accomplishment of organizational goals as well fosters growth of potential for achieving organizational goals.
Managers are concerned with the process and seek to control their team and tasks. Leaders have a completely different perspective; they aim at the final result and ensure that their employees are capable of working independently. Although both roles are considered critical for organizational effectiveness, there are fundamental differences between managing and leading, and transition from a manager to a leader means learning new skills and adopting new mind sets.
10 Tips for a Manager to Become a Leader
Transition from a manager to a leader is the major career milestone as this change means switching from the role of the operations coordinator to the strategist and motivator for the team. It requires cultivating and expanding other skills which are essential in order to energize a team. Let’s explore some essential skills:
Embrace Your Team’s Potential
The major difference between a manager and a leader lies in the capacity to offer demonstrations of how their team can accomplish their best. When you progress from simple assignment management to managing people or, more accurately, from micro to macro managing, it is critical to nourish a psychological concept of growth among your subordinates. Make your team members to welcome challenges, failures, and look at the opportunities to transform themselves into better people. By offering your employees favorable conditions under which they can learn new things and develop professionally, you will ensure that your workers achieve the greatest possible level of performance.
Understand Emotion
Emotional intelligence is another fundamental area in leadership that is enriched with sufficient understanding and aptitudes in contrast to mere job-specific expertise. For someone to lead, you need to be sensitive to how they feel and how others feel as well. You also need to be very sensitive to his or own feelings, as well as the feelings of others, and cope up with conflict situations. There are so many benefits associated including all rounded relationships, enhanced teamwork, positive work environment and especially now enhanced organizational productivity because people have to act right.
Communicate Effectively
Employing communication skills is central to a number of career practices, and this is even more relevant to leaders. When you have moved from the management to the leadership level, it is important for you to develop good and clear communication with the subordinates. This implies a willingness to listen to and from the other team members and to receive and provide information or feedback. Here is why maintaining healthy communication is important: it will help you maintain relationships with family and friends, build a positive team environment in the workplace, and encourage everyone in your team to work to the best of their ability.
Lead by Example
The greatest leaders fully appreciate the fact that they have the capacity to influence their team. Ensuring that as the leader of an organization, you provide the best example of how performance, integrity and professionalism should be managed in that organization. If you set the bar high and communicate the expectation that the work is to be done to the best of everybody’s ability, people will notice it and do just that. Always bear in mind that you have your team of subordinates and most, if not all of them, emulate your behaviors, characteristics or attitudes and performance.
Empower Your Team
A main characteristic of a good manager is to allow team members to assume responsibility for implemented tasks and decisions. Carefully decide what tasks you want your team to undertake and give them the tools and encouragement they need to do the job well – this will prevent them from becoming complacent and develop ownership of the work they are doing. It will not only make them more confident as well as productive but also help you to manage your time and concentrate on corporate level planning.
Be Adaptable and Innovative
It is here important to note that as you proceed to leadership, one has to embrace change and be receptive to new more ideas, methods, and technology. Self-education is critical now due to the continuous changes in the business person within the world. Majoring in trends within the specific industry, incorporating and encouraging your team to be innovative will ensure your organization thrives over the years into future markets.
Promoting Growth and Development
One of the leadership competencies is Availing resources for development of others in the team. This means conducting all forms of training and information that will help the employees expose themselves to other more challenging tasks. In conclusion, investing money in the people that work for you can help you keep them engaged and foster their long-term retention as well as improve your organization’s overall capacity for sustaining itself in the face of increased competition.
Develop a Strategic Vision
A leader must know what they wants for a team as well as for the organization in the future. First, this involves looking at the future objectives, how to get to them and the power to communicate the plan. Sharing your strategic picture is effective in directing the efforts of employees toward achieving organizational goals and objectives due to clarities that will have been created.
Build Strong Relationships
The management is therefore not an individual exercise, it is a teamwork activity. Early on as you move from being a manager to a leader, relationships will be an important aspect to focus on with your team members, colleagues, and other stakeholders. Through making the people involved believe in the organization through trust and collaboration together with communication, the members of the work team get motivated and the work team attains its set objectives.
Constantly Think and Learn
Then the great leaders are willing to continually continue learning efficiently and professionally. To effectively transition from manager to leader, it is always suggested to pay attention to what kind of leader you are, to note down the issues that might need some development together with monitoring the feedback of the team members and other stakeholders. If you apply a growth mindset, conduct personal transformation, as well as continuously develop yourself in a personal and professional setting, you will be in a greater position of leading your team to success.
Conclusion
It is easy to accomplish the change and transform from being a manager to a leader but this is a process that is worth undertaking. Through emotional intelligence, practicing effective communication, positive modelling, delegation, feedback, setting personal and professional development, developing of the vision and the mission, building relationships and the ongoing implementation and evaluation, you will fully prepare yourself to lead a team, motivate it and the organization.
