The act of managing and the attitude of leading

To manage is a learning process, where the acts are more important than the “actors”.
To manage is an art, anyway, and it is an important part of any organization. To manage is the “hard” part of the planning.

To lead is a talent achieving process. Of course you may learn it, but not in the way you may learn how to manage.
To lead is a process where the “actor” is more important than the “acts”. The attitudes “speak” more than anything else. They are the interface to create links with the external world. To lead is the “soft” part of planning and implementing.

The manager has the “conceptual” understanding, and he moves through those concepts reading them as challenges. He reads these challenges as his limits. He moves through the challenges always limited by the concepts he reads as his limits.

The leader has the “contextual” perception and he moves through the concepts always feeling the context. He reads the challenges as his start-points. He deals with challenges as his attributes.

Attitude and act
Attitude may be seen as the upgrade of the act. When an act has “spirit” it becomes attitude. The power is in this “spirit” behind the action, in a way the actions may be very subtle, but will instill some kind of power.

Balance
To lead is the “subtle” part of the successful planning. The leadership language is the “attitude”.
The management language is the “act”. Both are important. But an act without attitude is a body without “spirit”. When the attitude is present firmness will exist. But that can be present in the management also. The difference is that when the firmness is balanced with respect there will be success. Responsibility also exists in both, management and leadership, but when there is lightness, there will be success. The leader has to take positions, has to defend positions, the difference is that he does not feel himself the defense lawyer of ideas, he is detached , somehow. This detachment just exists when there is deep confidence. These balances are quite natural in leaders, while the managers struggle when they have to face opposition, they shake, while the leaders regardless of the result leave the situation victorious, even when their ideas are denied. They do not depend on results. When there is violence, lack of respect, lack of confidence, jealousy, selfishness, the leadership goes away.

Competence & leadership
Usually competence is linked to the fact of being good at some specific work. Hardly ever a leader is the best in some specific trend. That’s a limited view.
When we come to leadership, the understanding of “competence” is a broader one. Competence comes to the complete view of the process. The competent leader is the one who is able to have his personnel doing their “best” part in the process. To have a clear sense of all the steps and to identify the right person(s) to each of them is the bottom line for succeeding.
To keep track of each one’s realizations, to help showing them some stepping stones on their way, to find a convergence point to them all is one of the roles of the leader.
To link them among themselves is very important. In this point the manager usually faces cruel difficulties.
Usually a leader is the one who will have the best people working with him, if he can. Usually the leader will inspire each of his teammates to give their best. Usually the leader will enjoy working with very talented people.
That’s a challenge to the managers; it is not for the leaders. About this “linking” process, creating links among very talented and dedicated people, it is there that sensitivity and sense must work together. It’s the leader’s responsibility to keep his teammates united. Here it’s where his attitudes will lead more than words or regulations.

Vision, mission and strategy of a leader
One of the roles of a leader is to keep the vision of his team focused ahead of its “acts” or “activities”. The vision must become part of their lives. That’s not only theoretical; it’s the seed for keeping the team united in the bottom level. The vision must involve all of them and must be within all of them.

When we come to deal with very talented people, usually the manager is not prepared to deal with their “obscure” side, the arrogance, selfishness, self-centered vision and self-promotion.

It is there that the leader makes the difference. The leader’s mission is, above everything, to lead. That includes leading his team towards his goals. To make clear the teammates importance is a point, but to show that their work is part of a “whole” is important as well. To embody the team is very much a part of his universe.

The strategy to be chosen must be based on values. To go through the strategy planning with the values “speaking” strong is his role. To spread them through his participation in the events he’s required is his part.

The strategy, the process of implementation, and the ways he is going to implement the process are important, but inserted in the context. Always must be considered that there are the values behind. The leader is made of values. His values make him. His principles, his vision, his transparency, his attitudes, his ways of relating to people, his attitudes, all are filled by the values.

Any, any methodology may be successful if it’s filled with high values. Maybe some methodology will take longer or even less far, but if they are led by true leaders they will succeed. The importance of values is great, but of course they don’t live by themselves, it’s important to feed them, to awake them, to motivate them to come up in the way, it is always possible.

Being different or being yourself?
The leader must not worry about the superficial vision that people may have of him. The leader is the one who is supposed to be beyond the influences of the crisis. Images won’t support the leadership during tough times. Images support fake.
The organization that wishes to succeed and to keep successful people with them should be prepared to accept “different” people. If it wants just the conventional or the formal, then there is no point in having leaders. They wouldn’t succeed in such a kind of organization.

The cycle of leadership - its creation, sustenance and shutting down, goes through the values. To stand for what is believed is the starting point. To make clear the priorities - based on values, to share the ideals through the steps is something not very usual, but ideals are is the fuel that will fill the ‘tanks” of the team, in subtle ways, most times, but revealed in the simplest moments of the team work.

Examples of world leaders

Dalai lama
Visible Qualities: happiness, humility, forgiveness and confidence.

Gandhi
Visible Qualities: Peaceful, detachment, love, compassion and perseverance.

Mandela
Visible Qualities: Resilience, tolerance and confidence.

The creative leader
The leader has one chance to survive: to be creative! If he is not, he will be a destructive manager. Talents will be a hazard in his team. New ideas will be refused and creativity will be killed day after day.

The inspirational leader
The leader has to be an enthusiast of inspirations. The true leader loves newness and loves challenges. The unknown is not “dangerous” for him. Above the inner feelings, he must be an inspiration to others. How? Sharing his fondness and his beliefs within all the steps he is required to perform. That “inspiring” thing is subtle. It’s not only through enthusiasm that he will inspire his team. Sometimes will be very introspective postures. The important point is to feel that, somehow, he is there to inspire people.

Mastering time
In a relation with time there are two choices. To master time or to be mastered by it, which makes a significant difference. To be a master of time means to co-create “history” and to experience the “eternity” through the small “moments”

Life is compounded by small moments while “history” makes something meaningful. When that magnitude is reached, people involved in the process grow up considerably. That does not mean to have fame or to be recognized by others, but more than that, it’s the realization that only special minds get. That is, to bring “spirit” to the moments. When the “spirited” moments are experienced, somehow, those people involved experience that those moments are forever, they are beyond the average, they feel extra energy, enthusiasm. Translating, we could say that those moments reached their eternity level. They may be simple ones, but somehow they are eternal for those who experienced them.

Time is a cruel master. The more value is given to it, the more it controls one’s life.
Thinking quite far away, if we do think about time, we may realize that it is an illusion, created by ourselves and fed by ourselves. The same person may master time and rule over it, or he may become a slave to it.

The leader must be sensitive about it. Several times the schedule or deadlines will be there, acting as the “talent or creation” killer. To manage it without allowing to control the process is his responsibility.

The ideal level happens when the process just flows over the “river” of time. Like a boat floating along the way. To get that is an art that is possible when a leader is behind the team. Even the most “stressful” deadlines may be considered as “nice challenges”, as if they were some falls on the way for the kayaking team.
When there is a leader leading the boat there will be confidence and joy, somehow. When there is just the manager there is the “fear” ahead, the fear of sinking in one of the falls on the way.

Motivation – a world of possibilities
The leader is a motivator. He is the one who can choose the fuel to be used according to the vehicle they require to use. The sensitiveness is his required quality, most times. When to be empathic, when to bring his team out of the atmosphere they were caught up in for some reason. Multi possibilities exist for a team to get stuck, the leader is the one to hook up his team, wherever they got caught up in something.

Leading people
The leader must be aware that he is always leading people, despite of being involved in tasks, most times.
His awareness must be clear: there are actors performing actions, and he is the one who is helping them to heighten their performance, individually and as a team.
The trap is to forget that and to put the acts as the priorities and the people involved just as the “performers of the actions”.
That is very subtle: usually the actions are the reason to have a team. But if the team forgets they are the ones who perform the actions they get lost.
Easily there is an inversion: the actions as the leaders

Leadership of values
The sense of values is the way to empower the proper lead.
The team needs to know the values behind and they need to develop them in their lives. Otherwise they will get lost on the way.
Values, values and values. What are some typical ones?
Joy, love, enthusiasm, empathy, humility, compassion and honesty.

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By Herbert Santos
Source: http://listeningtothestars.com
image: by Clix