To head up a company you need to learn how to be a great leader, not just a great manager. Building a successful company takes an entirely different combination of skills than the role you may have been doing before,
When you’re growing a company, you flex your management muscle all the time. You are constantly pushing your team and making sure that everyone is focused on the right priorities, that deadlines are hit and that together your company is functioning like a well-oiled machine.
Leadership and management are not mutually exclusive by any means. Instead, they each require both muscle groups applied in the right mix–and understanding how they are distinct makes managers better leaders and leaders better managers.
Think Differently
When you start a company you have zero momentum. In fact, you will likely even face obstacles which will slow your progress. To build momentum takes leadership. You need to be more confident and more driven than anyone else to speak over the doubters, to inspire your team and get your business rolling in the right direction.
To be a great company leader, you must be able to radically alter the momentum of a situation and of course, be in a position to do so. Think of Steve Jobs coming back into Apple when it was weeks away from bankruptcy.
While good management can amplify momentum and bad management can slow it down, only leadership can change its course. If you are tweaking, optimising, and tuning processes, you might be a phenomenal manager, but you’re not leading. You also won’t see radical change come about.
What’s Your Story?
Communication is hard. Management communication is different than leadership communication and it’s important to know the difference.
Management communication is logical and precise. You say what you mean and mean what you say. Information is delivered clearly, crisply, and in a timely manner, often focusing on the details instead of the larger picture. And that allows people to use the logical part of their brain to work on the right things, make the right decisions, and keep things humming along.
On the other hand, leadership communication is about connecting with people at an emotional level. Done well, it engages the team. It makes them believe they can do something and that they can win against all odds. Al Pacino’s nspiring half time speech in the movie Any Given Sunday is an example of this.
I’ve found that the best leaders use stories to communicate. Over the course of history, poignant stories, whether about tradition, legend, or religion, have kept families and cultures connected for centuries. And if you’ve spent time with a young child, you notice they think in terms of stories far earlier than they think in terms of logic.
The next time you present to your team think about whether the goal is to manage or lead. If you want radical change, you need to lead. And if you’re trying to lead, you need to tell a story. You need to inspire.,
