A leader's role is to ensure strong business performance. They achieve this through others. A large part of the role therefore is to ensure the team is effective, individually and as group.

Working through People

A manager achieves results through people, individually or in a team. Working through others rather than doing the work ourselves is often a big change for new managers.

There are a number of ways of doing this and different styles of management. Alongside this there are various types of authority that we hold and power we can wield to get the job done. Good managers use a combination of these. Knowing what they are, and how to use them, is the place to start.

Knowing this is only the start, as the job is to achieve results through individuals. This means managing the individual, motivating, delegating, coaching and so on. Taking this on a step and forming teams of the individuals, guiding the team, leading them through the various stages of team development and helping them perform as a single, powerful unit, is a key element of modern business competitiveness.

At the end of the day our performance as a manager will be measured through our results. Whilst this is often achieved through others, there is still the managing of the task to do.

Planning and resource management, performance measurement of people and the business all need to be brought into the mix. And the ultimate test? Have we managed it all within our budgets and financial constraints? How do we and our team know how well they have performed.

Leaders are all individuals who develop their own style of leading. People follow individuals for who they are and what they represent in their thoughts and actions. We all have to develop our own leadership style.

Leading

A leader controls and influences a wide variety of teams, some may even be outside of the organisation.

More than any other role, leadership is about people skills and interpersonal effectiveness. Without strong people skills a leader cannot lead and people will not follow. The ultimate goal is to inspire those around you.

As leaders we need to understand ourselves, and how we work, before we can effectively lead others. Ultimately leadership is about the individual. There are the many ways of leading, which need to be matched to our own personal style and preferences.

Having considered our own style, we need to look to the people and organisation we lead. There will be teams we directly lead, but also larger teams we will have an indirect leadership of, who we will influence through your behaviour and activities.

The way we work will influence, or directly effect, the way others work. We shape the culture of the business. But it goes beyond this. There is the market place in which our business operates, wider supply chains and clients, to whom we are the business they deal with.

As a leader, setting strategy, we ensure the whole business is heading the right way, and that others are behind it. We are not alone though. We need to operate as part of the leadership team. This team needs to work as a unit and be seen to do so by those inside and outside of the business. The leadership team is the face of the business.

They say no man is an island; the same is true for no business. Individuals and coporate entities build relationships and communities and operate within a complex, often international if not global, network. We need to understand this contexts at a personal and a business level.

The Wider Context

Ultimately the aim of a business is succeed in all its goals and aspirations. This includes obvious elements, such as profitability and cost containment, but can also extend to community and wider issues.

Leaders and managers need to work in the wider picture of the organisation and market place.

A useful way of starting to examine this area is to consider the business as a system , which is part of a wider system or systems. We need to understand the inter-relatedness of all the parts and consider which parts of the system we control, or influence, or are dependant on, and how to maximise its value to us.

Thinking in this way, we naturally move on to some of the key parts of the system; suppliers to our business, and how we manage them; customers and how we meet their needs, retain good clients and grow our base; the wider market in which our business exists, with its competitors, partners and regulations, and our role in the community.

In the modern business world change is now the norm, a constant . Management of change and the power to change our businesses positively is underpinned by all other development areas, but is of enough importance to require attention in its own right.

No man is an island, which is good as an island could be a very lonely place.