Everything that could be said about management and leadership has already been written. Many believe that the two roles are unrelated- you can be a great leader with little managerial experience or that you can be a manager without being a leader.Maybe, you have to be both at the same time or perhaps there is an evolutionary transition?

In my career of 35 years with the same company, I had 14 roles. The easiest job I ever had was following a guy who basically had been in the job for too long. His passion and leadership ambition had been blunted by overexposure to the same routine for too long- he had become stale. He was a great manager so I inherited a disciplined staff who operated within well defined parameters with stable processes.

The job was easy in as much as all I had to do was engage the team to discuss and agree our strategic intent and to define the extent of our ambition. They were hungry for success and it came about by everyone pulling in the same direction. There were blips but management procedures were embedded to resolve these effectively. Suffice to say it was one of the most satisfying periods of my career. As an aside – the guy I replaced went on to a new challenge, refreshed, he also was extremely successful.

The most difficult job I experienced was as a “fire fighter” positioned to fix a failing part of the organization. The problem wasn’t the strategy or the sense of ambition – that had been well defined. The fundamental issue was the total inability to execute. Managerial capability was low. Poor performers had been accepted as the norm, resources had not been adequately deployed and as a result there were issues everywhere. Strategic progress could not be made as every day a new and different issue had to be addressed- fixes made were superficial and hence resurfaced with alarming frequency.

The fix was changing personnel and building secure and well understood management processes- it was a long and “bloody“ period. The definition of success was in the monthly performance metrics and the subsequent ability to take on strategic programs.

Sadly, I can recount a number of leadership initiatives that failed through poor execution. The visionary leader may think the job is done once the organization has bought into the proposition. Visionary leaders can often be “world class delegators” or is that “ world class abdicators” – your view normally depends on where you are in the management chain!Management does require getting yourself down into “the weeds” occasionally- the trick is not to stay there too long!

Leadership and management are intrinsically linked – the best leaders are without doubt great managers. The deployment of resources- people, processes and infrastructure is a skill , but one that can be learned. It requires fine balance of detail and ownership but with enough space to allow your team to grow and in an environment where mistakes are learning opportunities not punishable events.

My first management role was looking after 80 process operators working a 24 hour/ 7 day shift rotation. It was also my first opportunity to dabble with the notion of leadership. All it took was the courage to take the first step.