Two weeks ago I had the good fortune to attend a workshop for high performing leaders out in Chicago, Illinois. The 3 day workshop focused on several aspects of management, leadership and other topics relevant to the above. Not too long before attending the workshop I had taken some time to work on and develop my personal brand. For those of you not familiar, a personal brand is a group of adjectives which can best describe you from peers or yourself. The personal brand that I developed was: "Motivating, Strategic, Manager & Coach." I was pleased with my PB and updated accordingly. Fast forward back to the Chicago workshop and our instructor (Mark Balzar & his team), which by the way were excellent, inspirational and motivating, began to speak about managers Vs leaders. They began to point out significant differences between a manager and a leader. Then I began to analyze and critique my PB - was I a "manager" or "leader?" After not much debate, I quickly came to the realization that I miss worded my personal brand and in fact should read - leader!
So, what are the differences? Well, there are several but the main difference I noticed and perhaps the most important is: a Leader is someone who will motivate and inspire and a Manager is someone who will control.
In my line of work as an Operations Manager, my job is not to control people, but rather to motivate, inspire and engage our associates to our company's vision and goal. As a direct result, we will achieve customer satisfaction and Operational Excellence!
So, yes I have updated my PB and now reflects accurately that I am a leader not a manager, but have you asked yourself the same: Are you a manager or a leader?
Final quote:
"People work for managers; they follow leaders."
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