Many of us assume that holding a job title with the word “Manager” or “Director” in it makes someone a leader—but it does not.
You can be a manager without being a leader. Management is a position bestowed upon you, which sets out roles and responsibilities, in relation to yourself and your team. But you cannot be a truly successful and highly competent manager without learning and integrating key leadership qualities. And in today’s fast-changing and increasingly remote business world, managers need to be effective leaders.
I believe that this gap between management and leadership skills is contributing to a gradually declining view of how employees perceive leaders. According to a 2023 Gallup survey, only 21% of employees strongly agree that they trust the leadership of their organization. Managers are responsible for inspiring that trust; and if those responsible for driving teams do not have the requisite leadership qualities to do that, then employee disengagement typically begins (followed by attrition).
A lack of leadership training among managers is one factor behind the growing gap between management and leadership. A survey conducted by the Chartered Management Institute found that even among senior managers leaders, 26% had never received any formal leadership training.
Here are the skills that a good manager needs and three foundational core leadership skills that also need to be developed.
What makes a good manager?
In Jim Collins’ book Good to Great, he talks about “Level 5 leadership.” He found over the course of his research that the companies that outperformed their competitors in terms of company results had Level 5 leaders in key positions in the company.
Level 3 on that scale relates to a competent manager, described as someone who “organizes people and resources towards the effective and efficient pursuit of pre-determined objectives”.
Good managers get things done. They have a set of objectives that they are aware of, and they need to make the team aware of; they have a to-do list that will lead to the likelihood of those objectives being met; and they are responsible for planning resources and delegating among the team to make sure that those things get done.
These managers are operational in nature, making sure things are done consistently to a timeline, to achieve key company goals. To achieve that, systems and processes are helpful to drive that efficiently.
However, an overfocus on the day-to-day detail can lead to losing sight of the big picture; which makes it very difficult to assess the value of the tasks that are being focused on, whether they are the right tasks to prioritize, and whether the best processes are in place.
Managers manage tasks, but leaders manage vision and people.
Focusing on tasks and details at the expense of learning how to lead people makes it unlikely you’d be able to get the best out of them.
How to be a good manager and leader
There are key skills that managers also need to develop (and anyone can work on), to become an effective leader, which in turn makes anyone a better manager.
One crucial leadership skill is being able to understand the big picture vision and translate that to a team. The big picture, and the strategy behind it, should determine the goals that managers work to. Plus, context increases motivation. When we know the “why” behind something, we are likely to pursue it more meaningfully. This context also makes workers more discerning about whether set goals bring the team closer to your vision. Therefore, managers need to keep abreast of the bigger picture, reflect on it, and consider it critically—and more importantly, understand—how it feeds into what their team is doing.
Secondly, actively listening is a key leadership skill. Surveys suggest that in 2020, at the start of the pandemic, employee engagement in the U.S. reached a record high. This coincided with a new way of leading, without the polish, expensive suits, and ivory towers. Leaders were honest about what they didn’t know. And they were actively listening to customer-facing workers. Many successful leaders genuinely wanted to know what workers thought and what support they needed to be able to carry on with their jobs. By listening, managers can give employees the leadership support they actually need, rather than what they think their employees need. When managers listen to workers’ problems or uncertainties, their team is more likely to be open and therefore, come up with good solutions to fix problems, rather than pointing fingers.
Thirdly, communication is key for great leaders to master. Trust is a huge element in employee engagement, which has an impact on company results. It’s hard to trust others when you feel like you’re in the dark. A manager needs to know how to communicate in a way that influences people, by helping them see what’s important, and what the priorities are, not just hand out a task list. Managers should also understand the intersection between what their team wants individually and what the company needs.
Where a team does not have clarity around what is expected of them, it’s hard to feel their work is meaningful. So managers should have regular check-ins and communicate expectations clearly, as well as consistently assess what’s going well and what needs improving.
To really lead a strong, high-performing team, you need to be both manager and leader.
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