Is management or leadership the key to success?
The easy answer is both. Good management and leadership skills are necessary to successful grow a business operation. Management is focused on duties, systems and tasks---things that must be accomplished, rudiments of a job that must be completed.
Leadership is focused on how to accomplish something, with who and using what resources. Management is doing things right, whereas leadership is doing the right things.
Management is a top-down, boss/subordinate, hierarchal set of techniques intended to control, supervise and administer.
Leadership, on the other hand, is a learned skill. It is enhanced by innate physical, social and personality characteristics. But it is no less a skill that can be learned and developed.
Leadership is a team exercise in which players, separated by responsibilities, are united by common objectives. As the uniting link in an endeavor, leadership is about influence, guidance and orchestration.
Management says: “You will do…”
Leadership says: “We should do…”
More on Leadership Development:
- Join the Young Farmers Network – Online forum for those in their early years as an owner
- I Want to be a Rancher – ‘Leave a Legacy’ for Farm Journal 05-2009
- Spafford on Leadership – Interview with Jeanne Bernick for Top Producer Radio (3:46 min.)
Make sure you don’t miss future updates. Become a Facebook fan of the Farm Journal Legacy Project.
