Career progression

Managers are plentiful but leaders are scarce. In any organisation, you'll find lots of managers, who are good at turning the handle: caring for customers, running things efficiently and keeping costs under control. They're safe hands - and absolutely essential to the well-being of the business. But, they're not the people the owners turn to for new vision or to energise a new venture, drive cultural change, introduce new technology, restructure things or push innovation. These are tasks for a leader.

Who gets ahead in business? From my experience, the people chosen to lead teams, divisions and organisations are leaders, not a managers. Leaders leverage off their organisation's past (of existing strengths and track record) to create an even stronger future. They inspire others and attract resources - whether from the corporate treasury or the financial markets.

If you want to survive, you certainly need to be an effective manager. No one wants an executive, who can't turn the handle and keep things going. But, if you want to climb the ladder and earn the best rewards, you've also got to be a leader.

This is simple economics: the best rewards go to the scarcest people. In this case, those who can move the business to a new level of market penetration and profitability. People able to inspire others - defining and selling a new and exciting journey of growth and performance.

So, how do you become a leader - and a good one at that? Practice is one way: you may already have had some leadership experience - if not at work then during your education, in sporting teams or voluntary activities. That's helpful. Observation is another way: you've probably lived or worked around some good leaders - perhaps a parent, your last boss or the woman you worked for one summer. That's also useful. But, all that experience and observation is about the past: situations almost certainly unlike what you're doing today and the challenges you and your team are facing - for example, to expand your unit, integrate another that's performing less well, and launch a new range of services.

If you want some tightly structured pointers, try my Leadership Action Packs. They're full of suggested actions, check lists and mini-cases drawn from my own 40 years of leadership observation and experience. learn more

Even better, try my V|E|C|T|O|R tools. They take you through a 3-step process to identify: the concerns holding your people back; possible action to address these; and, then your specific action commitments. With lots of resource material to sharpen your thinking in coming up with a practical leadership action list. learn more