Are You a Manager, Ruler or Leader?

Regardless of your title, you manage something in your organization. As an individual contributor, you manage your day-to-day tasks and longer-term objectives. As a team manager, you guide the work of others, coordinate resources and share responsibility for the results. As the head of a department, you probably manage organizational direction more than people or process.

Adjusting Your Approach to Your Role

Even though an individual’s management style is bound to be a mix of functional manager, inspired leader or autocratic ruler, they will display a tendency toward one particular approach. For the sake of organizational productivity, it would be fortunate if their style were a good match to their current role and function.

Regardless of which style you or your co-workers lean toward, the ability to switch hats is also important, since individuals’ roles and functions within a company shift over time. An individual contributor, because of their special expertise, may be asked to lead a new project. A manager needs to draw on leadership skills during company reorganizations. A leader must rely on functional management skills during lean times. Each must adjust their approach to fit their role in order to remain productive.

The Manager

The functional manager derives authority from the enticements he or she offers to subordinates in order that they perform their assigned task. Those enticements include money and promotion. Typically, they are the implementers of plans coming from above them in the organizational hierarchy.

They crave order and productivity as much as they dislike confrontation and risk. An efficient manager focuses on results and not on activities. People skills are also important in order to accommodate team members’ personal needs and growth opportunities.

The Ruler

Over teams whose day-to-day work is routine, undemanding of skill or thought and dictated by an unchanging organizational structure around them, a ruler thrives. Rulers are fond of standards and procedures with which they are intimately familiar.

Rulers do more than crave order; they insist upon it. They may be in the role of a people manager but are better suited to managing processes, such as quality control or finances. Because they typically occupy a rigid, well-defined function in a company, they tend to be immune to reorganizations. A ruler will have difficulty in adjusting their style toward leadership.

The Leader

A leader effects change, whereas a manager implements it. The leader’s organizational authority over others, if any, only guarantees an audience, but not followers. They lead by example, knowledge and expertise. Their superb communication skills enable them to generate desire for and a loyalty to their vision. Charisma in a leader is good but unnecessary. Leaders may even be unlikable on a personal level. Regardless of their personal style, they are able to inspire.

Does Your Style Match Your Role?

You probably have a good idea about which mix of management style you have already. However, you should ask yourself if your mix should be adjusted in order to increase team productivity:

• Which do I do more: tell or listen?
• Am I listened to by others? What evidence do I have of that?
• How do I help my team’s performance? Should I do more of that?
• Am I a catalyst within my team or do I hinder their performance?
• Does my team need to be challenged more? Do we share similar goals?

There is always room for improvement in one’s management style no matter which approach is called for at a given time. Seek evidence that your style fits your current role then effect positive changes to improve your style.

Bernhard S