If you are given the opportunity to lead a team – how do you distinguish between being a leader and a manager? There might be sometimes that you wonder if you should place priorities on the development of your team, or in ensuring things get done right in the fastest time possible. Like what Peter Drucker said “Leadership is doing the right things; management is doing the things right”
The following are the main consideration factors between when you should use which leadership style
Your current team culture
If you have a team who does not like change, and who prefer to be instructed than empowered – the team requires a manager instead of a leader. Leaders constantly challenge status quo and often have the courage to take on risk and it would be disastrous if the team is constantly fighting against change.
A leader also has a tendency to have highly stretched goals and the audacity of the goals and would be disastrous if the team feels it is unattainable, with a lot of self-doubts.
Urgency of tasks and amount of resources
If the tasks at hand are urgent, a manager would be better than a leader because they are more results and tasks orientated. Managers would be taking the defined goals and executing by having a list of detailed plans – so the goals would be achieved by average employees in the shortest time.
Existing culture of the company
If the current culture of the company is also risk adverse and where the Key Performance Indicators (KPI) of employees and incumbents are strictly monitored – then a leader would not be able to excel in this environment as well. Imagine if a leader invents to define new paradigms, using his creativity to be constantly rejected his Chief Executive Officer (CEO).
Ultimately, one leadership style is not a superior form over the other. To sustain and to remain competitive with their competitors, companies should have a good mixture of transformational leaders as well as good managers. When companies are hiring management levels, they should also understand what is the current culture of the company as well as the needs of this team. This can help define the purpose on why this new incumbent is brought on board