Leadership

As Bennis and Nanus say, ‘Managers are people who do things right; leaders are people who do the right things’ {Bennis & Nanus 1985: 21}. The origins of the words 'management' and 'leadership' can help us understand some key differences between them. ‘Leadership’ has its roots in Norse words meaning ‘path’ or ‘route’. The leader looks ahead and finds a path for others to follow. The leader takes others on a journey towards a goal, seeing the way ahead and encouraging them to persevere until the destination is achieved.

‘Management’ has Latin roots in the word ‘manus’ or ‘hand’. The hand is one of the greatest tools devised by nature and gives humanity the power to solve thousands of practical problems being flexible, adaptable and, above all, useful. Similarly, ‘management’ is about controlling things and solving problems. Managers solve immediate problems (‘trouble shooting’). They set up and administer systems to ensure problems are avoided in the first place. The manager monitors budgets, timescales and progress in a systematic way.

The difference between management and leadership implies different ways of achieving things. A management approach would focus on controlling the allocation and use of resources such as time, money and physical materials. A leadership approach would focus more on the people involved and stress the individual satisfaction to be gained from achieving the task. Combining good management and good leadership means that the right things get done and in the right way.

Modern research on brain hemisphere function suggest that the left side of the brain is the rational, rule-following, calculating, ‘objective’ side while the right side is more emotional, holistic and intuitive. Effective leadership engages all part of the brain but leadership may be thought of as more balanced than management as it explicitly draws upon the right brain - personal meaning, the emotions and the holistic ‘big picture’. To really inspire people you need to appeal to the right brain first and the left brain second. This means recognising that demonstrating your own enthusiasm and commitment can often be much more powerful than any amount of detailed analysis and information.

The learning facilitator is both a manager and a leader. Successful leadership is underpinned by sound management. What’s more, the performance of most people including learning facilitators is monitored and judged on managerial criteria. Good management is about ensuring regularity, predictability and fairness. This is important in assessing learners. It is very important to realise, however, that combining management activities with leadership activities leads to better results.

The same task can be accomplished in a way that emphasises management or leadership depending on the way it is done. A supervision session, for example, can focus on checking off a list of important tasks or focus on the individual motivation driving the work. In this way supervision can be either a management or leadership activity.

Giving feedback and checking progress are other examples of activities that can be either management or leadership activities depending on the way they are done. Similarly, explaining the SSSC codes of conduct can be a mechanical process of listing ‘the rules’ or can be enlivened by appealing to the principles and values embodied in the codes.

One way to tell the difference is to ask how learners feel at the end of the activity. Do they have a clear sense of what is required and why it is necessary? Do they feel keen, or even inspired, to do what is necessary? How do they feel about the credibility of the person providing supervision or giving the feedback?

The best managers are also good leaders and the best person to work with is someone who can both manage and lead well. Job satisfaction, however, is most strongly associated with good leadership. This is because good leadership infuses our work with meaning and because leaders attend to the people-oriented, emotional element of the task. While managers get things done in the short term leaders help us see the enduring meaning of our work.

Unfortunately most managers are supervised in ways that encourage them to develop management skills sometimes at the expense of leadership. Their performance is often monitored in relation to things that can be easily counted such as time, money and physical resources. Interestingly, Einstein kept a sign on his wall that said "Not everything that counts can be counted; not everything that can be counted counts." Leadership can mean going against the grain of bureaucratic expectation - but leading teams rather than just managing resources, produces far better performance, increased job satisfaction and improves the reputation of the organisation. Individual inspiration and team working definitely counts but cannot be easily counted.

We all know that some people seem to have greater natural talent than others for some things – but this only accounts for a proportion of leadership ability. In the right environment everyone can develop their leadership skills. There are more and more opportunities becoming available to develop skills in leadership. You can help to create an environment where leadership thrives through your own role as leader for learning.

You may well have answered that there are many more examples of management than leadership around. One reason for this might be the lack of preparation for those who take up a management role. For many managers their first love is their role with people who use services. They will have sacrificed much in order to develop the extensive range of skill and knowledge needed to perform this role effectively. Making the transition to a management role can be difficult partly because it feels like they are leaving these achievements and this sense of purpose behind.

Many managers, however, remain strongly connected to the core values and principles that brought them into social services. At the time of writing leadership communities were being set up across Scotland by the Scottish Social Services Learning Networks. It may be that you could access learning opportunities in this or other ways. The Social Services Knowledge Scotland portal offers a great range of very useful leadership resources.

Organisational culture can also make it difficult for managers to become good leaders. Often managers are judged primarily on whether they can fix an immediate problem or whether they exercised sufficient control over scarce financial or other resources.

It is vital to remember, however, that you do not have to be a manager to be a leader. There is much that you could do to become a leader for learning. First, ensure you manage the learning opportunity well. Secondly, look beyond the task itself to the leadership opportunities that may lie behind it. Remember, for example, about explaining the SSSC codes of practice to a learner. This task could be a great opportunity for you to share your own vision of learning with others.

Because of its origins meaning path, route or journey, leadership is a 'moving' word - but moving with a sense of direction towards a goal. That goal is the vision.

Vision is about imagining or visualising your preferred future. The more detailed and the more compelling you can make your vision the better. Your vision might involve your agency becoming a fully fledged learning organisation. You might envisage individual learners feeling more positive about their work, supporting each other and feeling pride in delivering an excellent service. Your vision must be inclusive and wide ranging so that it can be relevant and inspiring to others.

Leaders can make their biggest contribution by helping others find meaning in their work. Communicating your vision is an important part of this – and has real immediate effects on those around you. Wheatley, for example, writes; ''All of us want so much to know the "why" of what is going on...We instinctively reach out to leaders who work with us on creating meaning. Those who give voice and form to our search for meaning, and who help us make our work purposeful, are leaders we cherish, and to whom we return gift for gift.'{Wheatley 1994: 135}