Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of financial Snickens. I'm your host, Alisa McCabe. And today we are going to be talking about distinguishing between managers and leaders. Now, When you run a small business, you are the owner, as the owner, you are the leader. And you might also be the manager. But as time goes on, leaders will emerge and the business owner typically emerges as the leader and then hires managers.
So what's the difference between a leader and a manager? Leaders provide the vision and steer the ship. While managers provide the structure and support that vision that the leader is. Putting out there. So managers are task centered. They are the getter done people that you need in your company. And the leaders [00:01:00] inspire people to all row in the same direction.
And the two need to work together. To create a successful company. So in my business book club, we just read Stephen Covey's the seven habits of highly effective people. This book is fantastic. And if you haven't read it, read it, it's old. It has been around since 1989. And I read it about five years ago.
And it really Made a big difference in the way I thought about speaking with people, my relationships with my team actually influenced my relationships with my family. So I started to think about this book in my, as I'm reading it now, I thought about it in a different way. And I started thinking about it in relation to management.
Or leadership. And so I went through each one of the habits and I started to [00:02:00] define them differently for each of those roles. So we're going to go through the seven habits and what they mean to each one of those roles. So the first habit is be proactive. So being proactive in management would involve organizing tasks, ensuring efficiency and productivity.
Do you need this? Yes. To run a company efficiently, this has to happen and management absolutely needs to be proactive. What about from a leadership lens? What does that look like? So proactive leaders are visionaries. They're always inspiring others and they are thinking. What is going to happen next?
Those leaders who lead good teams are always looking for what is going to happen next, taking proactive steps and Giving voice to what, [00:03:00] to that vision. All right, habit number two is begin with the end in mind. I love this one. So a manager is going to focus on defining and achieving long term targets. So they will start to think about what's going to happen.
And, and you do this with your leadership team. And everybody has to be involved in it. So a management. As someone in management needs to know what the end goal is, then they can set up the tasks or the steps that go with that from a leadership point of view. We are using this habit to set up with the vision for the team, for the organization and making sure that all of these long term objectives.
Are in alignment with the vision. So thinking of what the end is, [00:04:00] how do you want the team to feel? How do you want management to feel? How can you make these things happen? And then what are your steps as a leader? To make those things happen. The third thing, the third habit is put first things first. So managers are going to prioritize tasks.
That's how they are going to utilize this habit. And they're going to allocate the correct resources to help the organizational goals and get there efficiently. How is a leadership person going to do this? The leaderships are going to prioritize their own tasks that are going to align with the overarching goals of the company and then inspire the team to help meet those tasks and get those priorities done so that they can meet the [00:05:00] visions.
Goals for the year. So the whole company is all moving in the right direction, but starting in the right place. So, number 4 is think win win. And this one is particularly important for both managers and for the leadership. So managers. Need to negotiate and collaborate with the team, with clients, with vendors that has to have a win win attitude.
It has to have a beneficial outcome for both people. That is incredibly important to have and train managers to be able to talk to clients and team members like this. So what about leadership? How do they work with win win? So they, leaders are in charge of culture, so they need to develop a win win culture where they're fostering an [00:06:00] environment where everyone can succeed.
It supports the managers, it supports the team, it creates a sense of collaboration where everyone has a say and has trust with each other and that makes the manager's job That much easier. So when they start to negotiate with a win win attitude, other people already feel that, and it makes the manager's job easier.
Number five for Stephen Covey, seek first to understand, then to be understood. So from a management perspective, this habit is really important because A manager needs to listen to the team. They need to understand the team dynamics and help them to understand what's going on and then they can help resolve conflicts and be able to address them effectively.[00:07:00]
From the leadership perspective, they need to be able to put forth this culture of connection with the team so that the team understands that the leader starts with empathy, and they're going to listen and be understanding, and that's what the culture is. And then again. When the manager starts to listen to the team, the team is already expecting it because the leader has put forth.
This is what our culture is. So as you can see, there's, there's a theme here for leaders and managers. Number six is synergize. Managers are focusing on optimizing processes and leveraging diverse skills for better outcomes. But the leaders. In this environment are trying to utilize the collective strengths of the team [00:08:00] for resulting in innovation and superior solutions.
The leadership team needs to own the culture and bring it to the team that this is how we are running our company. We are creating a group. We're going to work together. We're going to have collective strengths. So when the management And to talk about this and is bringing it to the team that they want to prioritize these tasks.
They want to utilize and optimize processes of teamwork and leveraging the team skills. The team is already on board and supportive of what this manager is bringing to the team. The manager is going to develop the tasks that are involved in this and how to go about it. It's the organization behind the process and the leader is going to inspire it.
Number seven, the final habit, [00:09:00] sharpen the saw. So managers are all about ensuring the wellbeing and development of members on the team and to maintain the productivity, but leaders. By continuing by continually improving themselves and fostering a culture of growth, learning and long term success are supporting the management perspective because management is conveying the message to the team.
The leaders. And the managers are conveying it to everyone, so the team and the managers, and then the managers are reiterating this and providing this message to the team. So, the leaders need to put out there. We are a culture of growth and learning and long term success, and the managers are making processes and building supports around [00:10:00] that.
And so, if you haven't gotten the theme from all of this. The leadership needs to lead the leadership needs to own the culture and push out all of these seven habits because they are incredibly important in a culture. And what it does is it ends up supporting management because management is going to take these ideas, these visions of what the culture is.
And develop it into tasks and processes and procedures that the team can follow. So if you are a leader, and you have a management team that you are supporting, take a look at these 7 habits and how they're broken out into management. And leadership roles and knowing that as a leader, you are supporting the management while putting out your vision to the team.
If you want to talk more [00:11:00] about culture, vision, leadership, management, head over to my website, firststepsfinancial. com. And we can chat more about this.
