Friday, March 10, 2017

The Monthly “Dot Connections”: Leadership vs Management

Digital is the age of creativity and innovation, and creativity is all about connecting the dots.


The effects of an increasingly digitalized world are now reaching into every corner of businesses and every aspect of organizations. Digital is the age of creativity and innovation, creativity is the most wanted trait for digital leaders and professionals today, and innovation is the light every organization is pursuing. Creativity is all about connecting the dots. Which dots shall you connect between leadership and management in order to improve business effectiveness and accelerate digital transformation?

Management vs. Leadership? In most human endeavors, leadership and management skills are not mutually exclusive but mutually enforce with each other. Leadership is a combination of nature, nurture, and circumstance. Leadership and Management are activities performed by people. These activities are two sides of the same coin; you can't get an organization to perform by using one side. Unfortunately, too many employees say they are over managed and under led. This does not mean that you can skip management and only do leadership. It means that you have to balance them better.
Leader vs. Boss A boss is someone who has formal authority over you based on an organizational hierarchy. A leader is anyone capable of positively motivating an individual, team or group even in the absence of formal authority.
Leadership vs. Followship? Digital is the age of people, either being customer-centric or unleashing talent’s potential, the digital dynamic is all about adaptability, flexibility, and growth. Leaders no longer only refer to the one who has a formal title or in an authoritative position, but the one with advanced digital mindset, who can make positive influence into the broader business or social environment; and due to the digital abundance of information flow, people may not always come to leaders for getting the right answers, but good leaders frame the right questions, amplify signal from noise, solve problems large or small via creativity; and follow the heart or listen and learn from others all the time.
Leadership Sparkle II: Influencing vs. Motivating? The words "influence," "motivate," "persuade" and "inspire" are often used interchangeably without much thought as to their accurate meaning. There’s subtle difference between the words, understanding them deeper may improve leadership skills and scenarios, as an effective leader needs to be both influential and motivational, better have them all.?
Leadership vs Position The managers at industry paradigm practice command-control through their 'positioned" authority power to achieve the management goal of efficiency, as talent are treated as resources or second priority while information is scarce. However, such leadership style is stale at the age of digital with the abundance of information, as business is hyper-connected and over-competitive than ever, innovation and effectiveness are key factors in business leadership to drive changes, so, what’s in-depth understanding about leadership vs. position?
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