What is leading in management?

There is a difference between leadership and management. Leaders can assess those individuals around them and identify what makes them tick. High-performance teams are the result of leading in management.

Management consists of four functions of management: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. These four functions are interconnected. As a manager, you need to ensure you are performing each function routinely. It is easy to drift and lose focus. Failure to address these four elements can result in subpar performance.

Planning

Planning is the process of assigning resources for the purpose of goal achievement. These resources can be people, capital, or equipment.

Skilled workers are called knowledge workers. They get this title from the notion that they are specialized workers. They may possess experience or a formal education. This background allows them to complete specific tasks.

The more specialized their abilities, the greater there demand. Knowing how to leverage the skills of workers in high demand may be the difference between moving the needle a little ways and a significant impact.

As a leader, it may be that these individuals are harder to please. The reason is that they know the importance of their contributions. Moreover, your competitor will know this importance as well and continually seek to lure them away from your organization.

Therefore, it is critical that you treat these individuals with respect. You should also work to keep these individuals content. This is where your use of motivation and influence can pay dividends.

Capital can also be a scarce resource. Therefore, as a manager, you need to understand the priorities of the organization. These priorities will determine which areas may receive the most benefit from this financial assistance.

Equipment use is just like the dilemmas facing skilled workers and capital. Planning is an easy task if everything is in abundance. The mere fact that scarcity is prevalent makes planning a difficult job.

Organizing

The role of organizing complements planning. Organization refers to the notion of who is going to be responsible and for what.

Ultimately, everyone needs to be held accountable. When you organize, you are taking the time to decide who will work with who and for how long.

When you are leading in management, you will ask yourself these questions. Asking these questions about planning will make the jobs of those you are leading easier. As a result, your job as a leader becomes easier and more enjoyable.

When organizing, you should ask yourself, the following question.

Who will be responsible?

What are task are they going to perform?

Will this individual need help, and if so, what type of help?

As a leader, how can I improve their effectiveness?

How can I make them more efficient?

How else can you help them perform at a higher level?

Leading

The leader will then use this knowledge to influence the person to perform in a manner consistent with the organizational goals. When you hold the role of a manager and can effectively influence someone to take action, you are leading in management.

[Tweet “Leading is the result of successful motivation and influence. When a leader is able to excite another person, the entire team can benefit. “]Combining motivation and influence with excitement is transformational.

[Tweet “Transformational energy allows members of an assembled team to feed off one another. “]They drive each other forward. When team members receive support and work together, they can think in innovative manners. This innovation leads to the ability to overcome challenges.

Controlling

As a controller, you are helping to set expectations. You set the expectations when it comes to quality and other standards.

Managers need to control expectations so that others know what to expect. These expectations are important because they act as a benchmark of performance. When there is no clear benchmark, team members may feel as though there performance does not matter in that area.

Lack of benchmark performance allows team members to relax their own standards because no one is looking. This may not always be the case. The problem may be that no standard has been set.

Controlling involves routine evaluations. These evaluations can occur at different levels. At an organizational level, the manager can check to see if goals will be met. At a lower level, evaluations can consist of performance reviews.

Regardless, benchmark levels should always be clear. When a member of the team has to guess the manager is at fault.

Conclusion

Planning, organizing, leading, and controlling are all vital functions of a manager. Leading in management is the result of doing all four of these functions well. One can be moderately successful by focusing on one or more element of another in the short term. Failing to address all these functions in the long term will eventually catch up with you. Take the time to develop systems in these four categories and check them regularly to make the biggest difference.