Continuing this week’s 3 postings about the engagement roles of Executives (yesterday), Leaders (today), and Managers (tomorrow).
Here’s a reminder about these roles and their overlap:
- One individual may wear more than one hat, at different times and for different reasons. (For example, a manager’s influence may translate to powerful leadership.)
- Title and job description may determine in which category one fits. (For example, the title Vice President of Marketing can suggest leadership. Sales Manager hints at management.)
- An individual may exercise executive, leadership and/or management functions at unique times, for unique reasons. (For example, when the Chief Operations Officer organizes the company softball team, she demonstrates all three responsibilities: executive, leader, and manager.)
A leader engages broadly and with sharp focus. Looking to the overall directions of the business, the leader also owns responsibility for directing specific structures and processes that achieve the goals.
That blend of responsibilities translates to these:
- Vision to application. The leader takes on the executive definitions of business vision, mission, goals and objectives. It falls to the leader to establish specific shape and procedure that fulfill that Big Picture.
- Directional inspiration. The most familiar responsibility for any leader is … leading. Directing managers and employees to carry out functions that achieve desired results is part of it. Directing so that both the functions and their results are meaningful is the other part. Inspiration is critical to effective, successful leadership.
- Structural motivation. As it’s a leader’s role to design shape that activates the culture, it’s also her responsibility to motivate the interaction of the structural components. In other words, the leader gets to see that the parts operate in sync and in accord with the business culture.
You’ll certainly see more of this in tomorrow’s posting about Manager Engagement, but please recognize that a leader has responsibilities for creating the C.O.R.E. of engagement:
- Communication of engagement,
- Opportunities that stimulate engagement,
- Resources to support engagement, and
- Engagement as an accountable responsibility.
That’s what one of our most popular programs develops.
