The better you lead, the less you have to manage

Every time I post on LinkedIn about how management is only required in the absence of true leadership, someone will pipe up with the same seemingly-smart yet unknowingly-ignorant comment, something like:

“You can’t just have one, you always need a combination of both, appropriate for the situation”

This perspective places a spotlight on an unfortunate business reality these days – most have never seen or experienced true leadership in action.

“These days” we are so caught up playing by the rules, in being politically correct, not being too different – that true leadership has become rare.

Few have ever seen it in action.

But I have, and I know one thing to be true:

When true leadership exists, management is not required.

Now this isn’t some bold statement for the sake of controversy.

Real leadership makes management redundant.

Management is required when people are not operating at their highest potential. It’s needed when people need to be ‘motivated’ to do their job – not when they do it because they love to and for what it gives them beyond money. It’s needed when people only turn up for the money – not because they are passionate about achieving something meaningful in their work.

My dream is to create leaders who understand through leading why management is not required.

But as it stands, most ‘leaders’ are practising management and thinking it’s leadership.

Seeing them as two sides of the same coin.

But that, they are not. They are different coins entirely. With different purposes.

Management exists to maintain.

To manage outcomes.

Leadership exists to create change.

What most leaders call “leadership” doesn’t create change.

It’s avoidance dressed up as action.

Management establishes structures and controls and boundaries so it doesn’t need to face challenges. It works around what’s difficult, around people’s emotions, sensitivities and conversations that actually matter, to get an arguably mediocre outcome.

Most difficult for me to accept, is that the act of 'managing' assumes people cannot rise to the occasion.

It assumes people need to be managed.

That they have no desire to succeed.

No will to become better.

No ability to navigate challenges.

It softens the messages, creates policies and structures that mean leaders don’t have to expect more from their people and finds way to move forward without ever addressing what’s really holding people back.

That means getting around barriers – not through them.

Unfortunately what most people LOVE about management is that it looks so productive!

Busy calendars. Constant activity. Lots of movement.

But nothing really changes.

You’re not improving performance.

You’re maintaining it.

Mediocrity isn’t a capability problem - it’s an avoidance problem. And one that management is very good at protecting.

It keeps people comfortable. It keeps things moving. It keeps disruption low.

It entertains excuses but it also keeps performance exactly where it is. Or, slightly better perhaps, but slightly better mediocrity is still mediocrity.

Leadership is something else entirely.

Leadership doesn’t work around what’s difficult.

It goes straight at it, creating an environment where what's not working is rigorously challenged.

Where people expect to be challenged, and feel both safe and inspired when they are.

It names what others avoid. It surfaces what’s actually going on. It creates the conversations most people would rather not have.

Not to create tension for the sake of it - but because that’s where change often lives.

Leadership is not about keeping things stable, it’s about moving somewhere new, and to move somewhere new, you have to remove what’s keeping you where you are.

That’s the work of leadership.

Most teams aren’t stuck because they lack capability.

They’re stuck because something is being protected.

Unspoken. Unchallenged. Unchanged.

Management leaves that in place.

Leadership removes it.

This is the idea at the heart of my work: Unmanaged leadership.

The more frequently you actually lead, the less you need to manage.

Until one day you discover you don’t need to manage at all.

Because management is what you rely on when leadership doesn’t fully exist.

It’s what fills the gap when the real issue is still sitting there - untouched.

The need for management doesn’t disappear by getting better at managing.

It disappears by leading.

Many feel slightly ashamed that they don’t yet truly understand the difference between management and leadership – and that’s ok. Few do. As I said, it's rare.

But at least leave room for the possibility that there is a form of leadership that you haven’t seen, or done yet, that can change the way that everyone around you operates - without you having to force anything.

That’s Unmanaged leadership.

Few people can imagine what they haven’t yet seen.

It takes a visionary to believe in what’s possible beyond what’s known.

Are you that visionary, or do you prefer to stick with what’s known?