This series on leader-managers was conceived to provide some insights into the process of not just hiring but creating great Line Managers. Beginning with Leading Complexity and Managing Complication. I make the case for why it is essential that leadership and management are viewed as two distinct and equally essential skill sets in the organisation of resources.
Management is about organising resources and the inherent complexity that arises as resources increase: establishing and maintaining processes, procedures, and policies — creating high performing teams — and preventing organisations from descending into chaos.
In Strategic Direction Versus Initiative Planning I look at the difference between the two essential skills needed by leader-managers — planning and strategy.
Strategy tends to be inductive in nature and revolves around looking for relationships and patterns. These relationships and patterns help the strategist to draw conclusions from which they can make choices about events that may take place.
In Managing Control and Leading Motivation I address and outline the reasons why motivation alone will do little to achieve results.
In the final article of this series, Fostering Leader-Managers, I bring it all together and investigate how to create an organisational culture which fosters leader-managers. An essential outcome as the approach of many organisations in appointing some people to lead and others to manage is achieving little more than creating engines of chaos.
When organisations invest in developing a culture that not just enables but requires that Line Managers be true leader-managers, they institutionalise the organisational behaviour necessary for leading at scale.