Liz Cherne, CTIE
Statement of Purpose
What is the difference between leading a team and managing a team? The two titles are synonymous, and may be used interchangeably, but their true purpose and goals are vastly different. This white paper explores the titles and the difference of one versus the other and how they impact the productivity and moral of a team.
Introduction
Last year I was interviewed for a manager role. The team of interviewers asked me my management style, I answered honestly that I don’t like to manage, I would rather lead. They all looked at each other and asked me to tell them more. I asked them, do you like to be managed? Or would you rather be led? That’s the question more companies need to consider when they create their “management” teams.
In my quest to understand how to articulate the difference between managing and leading, I recently found a video on YouTube, featuring Simon Sinek called “Leader versus Manager.” Mr. Sinek (2019) quickly articulates that, “true leadership starts with distinguishing between being ‘in charge’ versus taking care of those ‘in our charge’.” This was a profound definition to me.
Problem Definition
In my most recent role, I lead a team of 60. They all know their job and do it well. They’ve had five managers in four years and didn’t care for any of them. However, they still did their job well. With the constant change in management, they survived by knowing their role well.
When I started, I didn’t know their job or the systems they used, but I understood how critical it is to feel valued and appreciated. I was informed there were team members who were toxic and got away with terrible customer service and behavior without any rebuttal. Those same employees also monopolized the manager’s time the most. So, the worst behaviors received the most attention as well. They wore management down and ultimately, the manager left.
Being a team member for many years, I have always desired to be valued and respected from my manager. I love work and I’m good at it. Personally, I don’t need anyone to “manage” me… but I have felt the most valued in my various roles when I was heard, encouraged, appreciated. I also valued my leader sharing our team vision and goals. That allowed me the ability to work toward our shared goals and feel successful. Contributing toward our team’s success was important to my motivation at work and the value I felt in the role I held.
With this large of a team, in my new “manager” role, I knew I didn’t have the capacity to help with everyday work, but the team didn’t need that. They needed respect, understanding and someone to listen to them. They also needed someone to advocate for them and someone to share with executive leadership how well out team did and where they were excelling.
Before I could shout from the roof tops at how great the team was, I needed to start meeting the team and establishing rapport with the team. So that’s where I started. I set up weekly one-on-one meetings. I started by getting to know them first. I have a team of all women, so I knew they wanted to tell me who they were and their background professionally, but also connect by telling me about their family, some of their favorite things, even their first job. Those initial one-on-one meetings started the foundation of our work relationship. It allowed me to understand who they were, what made them happy, how they got to who they are today. It gave me an opportunity to establish trust. It also helped give them an opportunity to connect with their new “manager.” I had a lot of work to do to change what the title and my role meant to them. They had only had negative experiences with a manager, I had to be different and connect differently, make a different impression.
Once that foundation of a relationship was established, trust was built. I found they would open up and share what their struggles were. What they needed me to help with. That knowledge helped me to tackle the real problems at the core of the team.
What I noticed immediately was that there were a lot of inter-team conflicts and finger pointing among team members. What was really going on is no one had a true goal in their role, so they each believed what their favorite task was, was the priority. Because of that they were quick to call out team members negatively based on what they felt they weren’t doing or weren’t good at.
To truly understand what tasks were important in the role, I started asking my new team members what made a person successful in their role? Interestingly enough, no one could articulate what success looked like. They also couldn’t tell me the last time when they felt successful in their role. They had more bad days at work than good days. Knowing how much I love work, this made me sad for them.
Taking all this in, I came to understand there were no goal posts, no finish line. How could the team do well if they didn’t have a success plan? So, I got to work. I worked with our trainers to identify what productivity metrics mattered. We narrowed it down to five. These five measures would help each team member to strive towards a productive day.
The other challenge was confidence. They had only been told when they were doing something wrong and that they needed to do it better. So, knowing they hadn’t received much encouragement, we also needed to prioritize and change the moral of the team.
High-Level Solution
With the two goals of confidence and moral in mind, we named our new productivity program HIGH5. So, when we discussed their day or their goals, we would always be talking about our HIGH5s, and meeting our goals, feeling like we were giving them a high five or celebrating.
Before implementing the new productivity metrics, the team had to have visibility. They could see a real time view of each team member and who was working or on break or at lunch, but that was it. So, we worked with IT to create a dashboard that allowed each team member to see their five key productivity metrics. Visibility would give them control over their day and helped them see where they were at throughout the day, giving them a tool so they could work towards achieving their daily goals.
Knowing how much people hate change and the struggles this team had with turnover in management, we decided to take a slow approach to implementing the new productivity plan. A new “manager” was hard to adapt to, but also the eminent change of new leadership as well. So, every two weeks we focused on one HIGH5 metric. We defined what that metric was, why it was a key metric and steps and tips to achieve the goal. Then they had two weeks to work toward that goal.
After 10 weeks we pulled it all together, showing them their new dashboard and giving them the confidence that they can hit their HIGH5. When we launched the program, we asked them to review their dashboard mid-day and at the end of their day to see how productive their day was. This was visibility was surprisingly empowering. They felt good about their work and efforts that day. They spent their day working on their own goals. Which also took focus away from trying to figure out what their co-worker was doing. Overall, we saw productivity shoot up, the team mindset flourished. They wanted to achieve their goals. They were happy and felt successful.
Our final request of each team member was an email to reflect on their weekly productivity with a self-reflection. This reflection gave them a chance to share their success of the week with me, but also what they felt they needed to prioritize the next week. This concept allowed them to “manage” themselves. Which allowed me to take on the role of celebrate their accomplishments and identify ways to help them achieve their goals. Reporting weekly also helped them focus on averages for the week instead of fixating on a day. We all have a day where we get caught up in something that throws our productivity off. That’s ok. Focusing on a week helped them control their success. Giving them permission to have a moment or a day that was the anomaly.
After six months since rolling out the HIGH5 productivity program, the team was able to improve on every metric.
During this timeframe we also found that this program naturally identified those that struggled with areas of the work. I had been told they were problematic prior to this program, but this program called out weaknesses even more. But it also gave us concrete data to help the team member to be accountable. The writing was on the preverbal wall, also known as their dashboard. The conversations I was able to have with the one particular team member were no longer surprises. They didn’t feel attacked or singled out. It wasn’t the manager “having it out for them.” They knew their struggles, so while coaching them they started to identify their own toils. The conversation led to what they enjoyed about work, or more importantly what they disliked. Not everyone is cut out for every job. Doing what you love and are passionate about was the ultimate conversation we had. If my approach was to manage this person, they would have been miserable and ultimately fired from their role for not doing their job. By leading the team member, they found their own way out of the role. We discussed what they were passionate about. What “work” they loved to do. We worked together to find another role within the company that the team member was more passionate about, work they enjoyed doing. We also maintained respect for each other, and I still encourage them in their new role.
Prior to the HIGH5 program, the team noticed the weak link of the team. They all struggled with this person’s work. They picked up where their team member didn’t, but they held resentment against that person. They were mad that management let the person get away with doing sub-par work. By creating a bar of what success looked like, it gave me the opportunity to set a standard for the team. Most team members worked hard to achieve or exceed in their success. By working to move the sub-par team member to a new role, they treated me with more respect as well. We were able to hire a new team member who has soared and makes the rest of the team proud.
The initial concept of a productivity program made some team members feel like it was going to be a tool to fire them. But ultimately it was a tool to help create a team environment that replaced the feelings of frustration and anger with success, confidence, happiness, and pride.
Summary
In my new role, I created the environment where I didn’t need to be in charge, like Sinek’s (2019) philosophy, I was taking care of those ‘in my charge’. It came down to caring about the people in the role. I wanted them to be happy and to feel success. Sinek (2019) states that, “managing is about being responsible for the job; leading is about being responsible for the people who are responsible for the job.”
During this talk, Sinek (2019) shares about how “being good at your job gets you promoted. So, you are then responsible for the people who did the job you were so good at. So that’s how we get managers, they micromanage the job they were good at and now the people in those jobs that they were once good at.” I do believe in promoting from within. However, most organizations I’ve worked for expect that our best people at a job will naturally be good leaders.
Sinek (2019) also talks about the importance of the transition time from being good at the job, turning into being responsible for the people who are responsible for the job. We need to encourage and challenge new leaders to understand the difference between managing and leading. Organizations should give new managers time and resources to grow into leadership.
Works Cited
Sinek, Simon (2019). Leader versus Manager [Online video]. Retrieved May 2, 2022 from https://youtu.be/nSUJwmPQEyg.
