Leadership That Makes A Difference

When you’re an owner or executive/manager, it’s not only critical that you understand the difference between leadership and management, but also that your actions align with the role you’re playing.

The Rogers Group defines leadership as the ability to take individuals, including yourself, on a journey to a vision. This is accomplished by creating unified teams that focus all of their energies and achieve the leadership’s vision within a reasonable period. Leaders take teams to where they would not have gone on their own.

Alternatively, management is defined as those that have direct responsibility to monitor the progress of an activity to its successful execution. In the process, they may directly order others to act in a particular manner. A manager’s authority is a direct result of the position and not necessarily the result of true leadership ability.

The differences between leadership and management are reflected when comparing the General Manager’s role to that of the President’s. The General Manager is in charge of day-to-day operations, and must see to it that the company runs smoothly and efficiently. The President’s job is to make sure there’s a business to run. He/she develops a vision of the perfect company. With the vision in place, all of the President’s actions are geared toward attaining it. This includes establishing organizational goals with plans to achieve them. The president must search for growth opportunities while insuring that the company is properly organized and the employees are trained and motivated.

We realize many owners of small and medium-sized businesses perform both the General Manager’s and President’s roles. Performing dual roles is not impossible, but it is in fact very difficult to achieve. One role is likely to suffer, and usually what happens is the company really doesn’t have a President. The owner is so involved in day-to-day operations and has little time to look at the big picture and insure that the recycling operation continually grows and prospers— and that it’s also ready to deal with any economic downturns that might occur along the way.

It’s critical that owners take a step back and evaluate what they’re doing. That’s what good leaders do. Now you might be thinking that stepping back is a good idea but you just don’t have the time to do it. What this means is that you don’t trust your people to do their job. Perhaps you need to replace some personnel, or maybe you have personnel with good raw skills and an excellent attitude, but who just haven’t been given opportunities to develop. Either way, it’s your responsibility as the company’s leader to hire good people and develop them.

Many owners we talk to will express concern or complain about an employee who isn’t doing the job. At The Rogers Group, we believe that if you haven’t taken action to solve a problem after 3 months, it’s no longer a problem… It’s just a way of doing business. Yet often owners seem paralyzed from taking action. They might believe that the whole process of replacing and training someone is too time consuming while running shorthanded; even more so if the wrong person is hired and the process must start all over again. So no personnel changes are made and the problems (or ways of doing business) continue, negatively impacting revenues, attitudes, operational efficiencies, etc.

It’s important to realize that while a manager’s authority typically stems from the real or implied power of the position, this does not mean that a manager’s leadership skills are not important. In fact, just the opposite is true. A manager’s leadership skills are vital to his/her success. Instead of employees performing tasks just because they’re following orders, wouldn’t you rather have employees who are excited about their jobs and the company/team, and consequently take the initiative to go the extra mile in pleasing internal/external customers, thereby surpassing all performance expectations for their particular position? This can only happen when managers as well as owners exercise superior leadership skills.

The good news is that the quality of one’s leadership skills is not dependent on genetics. Regardless of whether or not a person is a born leader, leadership skills can be developed and enhanced for anyone wishing to do so. That is why we advise you to consider the leadership training programs offered by companies such as The Rogers Group. When leaders take what they learn in training and systematically apply it on the job, the results will be significant improvements in areas such as bottom-line profitability, productivity, customer service, and operational efficiencies, not to mention higher morale along with greater employee loyalty and motivation.

Finally, practicing what you preach and being willing and able to confront problems and take decisive action to solve whatever is ailing your company are key requirements of good leadership. If you’re already doing this—or at least are committed and ready to make needed changes—then you are to be congratulated. Being a leader isn’t easy and it’s certainly lonely at the top. But if you don’t initiate or make necessary changes, then who will? It all starts with you.