The Challenge

Many leaders fall for the notion that once they create the ultimate few objectives (TUFs) and help devise strategy, execution becomes the team's responsibility and problem. Much like the candidate on election night who holes up in a war room to monitor results, they become passive and wait for the numbers to come in. They spend their days dazed by data, numbed by numbers, immersed in e-mails, and fazed by phone calls, all the while collecting more calluses on their backsides than on their feet and hands. The following three concepts are taken from the eight key differences between—and tendencies of—managers and leaders, which I discuss in my Up Your Business seminars. These help attendees become more aware of what they are doing well and where they need to make adjustments in their daily leadership approach. These three are big. As you read them, consider how the people who work with you most would grade you (A through F) in each area:

Leaders Are in the Stretching Business!

1. Managers maintain, whereas leaders stretch. Managers are adept at maintaining people, but they're not great at growing them because they don't spend enough time with them. Many were never trained how to evaluate or develop human capital in the first place. They do not seem to realize that although you can impress people at a distance from the safety and comfort of your office, to affect people, you must get up close and pour yourself into them.

   Leaders, on the other hand, are committed to leaving their followers better than they found them. They create and set TUFs and specific master the art of execution (MAX) acts that not only take people out of comfort zones, but also force an alternative approach to the business-as-usual mind-set to achieve them. In addition, they provide the training, empowerment, engagement, and accountability necessary to reach TUFs, especially as they map daily results on the MAX board and bring closure to each prior day's effort with an accountability-driven rhythm accountability meeting (RAM). When all is said and done, if you are not equipping and then stretching your people by creating a culture that fosters both a healthy discomfort and pressure to perform, then you are not leading them.

The Front Line Determines the Bottom Line

2. Managers lead from the rear; leaders from the front (the trenches). Because they are enamored with stuff, leaders who overmanage become aloof and out of touch far more often than they engage in the trenches of their organization. In the trenches they could act as a catalyst, unleashing the full potential of their team. Instead they pencil-whip budgets and camp out on the cul-de-sac of counting beans, where they try to turn the numbers around. These managers ultimately fail to develop their most appreciable asset; talk like leaders but act like anchors.

   Conversely, leaders spend more time charting the course than they do charting the results. They focus on what is happening in the arena, as well as on what is on the horizon. This is because they know that the front line determines the bottom line. They just as quickly affirm good performances as they confront poor ones. These leaders have meaningful coaching, training, and mentoring time with their team; they engage with customers and proactively shape their culture rather than leaving it up for grabs. All this is to say: They lead!

Change before You Have To!

3. Managers resist change and defend the status quo; leaders rattle the status quo and change before they have to. A key difference between the management and leadership mind-sets is that managers often wait for the bottom to fall out before they change, whereas leaders change before they have to. Managers who spend too little of their productive time with people, and too much of it with stuff, devolve into a defensive posture where they spend more time plugging holes, doing damage control, and reacting than they do leading. Because they are not in the trenches, or in touch with people to see and hear what is really going on in their organization, they are always too slow to change. Thus, they are more inclined to protect what is, than they are to rattle the status quo so that the organization can fight off complacency, make MAX adjustments through pruning, and continue to grow.

   However, those leaders who stay in the trenches with their people see more clearly what needs to be changed and are quicker to take action. Too many leaders who were successful at one time because they led from the front and acted as change agents gradually withdraw from their catalyst role and begin presiding and administering as they roost in their office too often and for too long throughout the day. They regress in a way that takes them from risk taker, to caretaker, and ultimately to undertaker, as they preside over a lifeless enterprise that became comatose on their watch.

Parting Thought

If you overmanage and underlead in areas such as the three I have presented, don't beat yourself up. After all, as I reminded you in the last chapter, we all get off track from time to time. What is important is that you become a more self-aware leader who is increasingly knowledgeable of his or her positive daily impact on others—or lack thereof—so that any temporary detour from strong leadership doesn't lead you into a dead end. If you would like regular tips on leadership to help keep you on track daily, follow me on Twitter @DaveAnderson100. See? It's not rocket science!