Are you a Project Manager? Lion or a Tiger?

A Project Manager is a professional in the field of project management. (Source: Wikipedia) The leadership style of a project manager will categorize him as a LION or TIGER. Let’s discuss and see what that means?

Are you a Project Manager ?

What is leadership? What is management and managerial-ship? There is an essential yet strikingly resonant difference between leadership and management which is captured in the following definitions:

Leadership is footing of a new direction or vision that people follow – a leader is the literal spearhead for the new direction.
Managerial-ship directs people/resources in one particular direction according to the principles or values that may have been pre-established.

There is much more to these definitions than it may convey at a glance. The relationship between leadership, management, and followers is complex.

Usually, leadership and management are often part of the very same role because there is a consistent adjustment of the direction (leadership) and then controlling the resources to achieve the direction (management).

The biggest difference perhaps between managers and leaders is the way in which they motivate the people who work or follow them, and this is what sets the tone for most other aspects of what they do.

How does it all work?

Managers have subordinates: By definition, every manager has subordinates – unless of course their title is honorary and given as a mark of their seniority, and in this case the title is a misnomer and their power over others is something other than formal authority.

Authoritarian and transactional style: Managers have a position of authority given to them by the company, meanwhile their subordinates work for them and largely do as they are told to, as they are paid to.

Work focused: The managers are paid to get things done (hence the subordinates too), often within tight constraints of time as well as money. They thus are naturally bound to pass on this work focus to their subordinates.

Seek Comfort: Research finds that managers tend to come from stable backgrounds and lead relatively normal and comfortable lives. And this leads them to be relatively risk-averse as they will seek to avoid conflict wherever it may be possible. And in terms of people, they generally like to lead a happy ship.

Leaders have followers: Leaders never have subordinates – at least not when they are leading. Most organizational leaders do have subordinates, but only because they are in the formal role of managers. But when they are to lead, they ought to give up the formal authoritarian control, as to lead is to have followers, where following is always a voluntary task.

Charismatic and transformational style: Mere telling the people what to do will not inspire them to follow. Leaders inspiringly appeal them by showing how following them will lead them to their desires. People must want to follow the leader and even be willing to take risks.

People focused: Many leaders will have a charismatic style, but this does not require a loud personality. They are good with people and have guts to take blame on themselves. This is very effective at creating the loyalty that great leaders possess.

Seek risks: The study showed managers as risk-averse while leaders appeared as risk-seeking, although they are not literally blind thrill-seekers. As pursuing their vision, they consider it natural to come across hurdles that must overcome along the way.

Thus they are comfortable with risk and will see routes that others tend to avoid as potential opportunities for advantages and will happily break rules to get things done. A surprising number of our leaders had to overcome some form of handicap in their lives.

This in itself perhaps taught them the independence of mind which is needed to go out on limb meanwhile not worrying about what others are thinking about them.

Leadership and Managerial-ship must co-exist, but with remarkable dissimilarities

Leadership and management go hand in hand. They are not the same thing of course. But they are complementary. Any effort to separate the two is likely to cause more problems than the resolves. Still, much ink has been spent separating the roles .

The manager’s job is to plan and organize as well as coordinate of course. But the leader’s job is to inspire and motivate.

On that note, in his 1989 book ‘On Becoming a Leader’, Warren Bennis had listed coexisting yet striking differences:

Manager administers; where the leader innovates
Manager is a copy; where the leader is an original
Manager maintains; leader develops
Manager focuses on structure; leader focuses on people
Manager relies on control; leader produces trust
Manager has a short-sighted view; but the leader has a long-range perspective
Manager asks how/when; but the leader asks what and why
Manager has his eye on the bottom line; leader’s eye is always on the horizon
Manager imitates; leader originates
Manager retain the status quo; the leader challenges it
Manager is the classic soldier; the leader is his or her own person
Manager does things the right way; the leader does the right thing

Meanwhile in the present economy, where value of work becomes increasingly as to the size of the knowledge, but where workers are no longer are undifferentiated as cogs in an industrial machine, management and leadership are still not easily separated.

People look up to their managers, not just as to assign them a task, but also to define for them a purpose. And managers must organize the workers, not just to maximize efficiency, but also to nurture skills, develop their talent and inspire results.

But with this rise of the knowledge in worker, ‘one does not manage people’, said Mr. Drucker, the management guru. “The task is to lead people. And the goal is to make productive the specific strengths and knowledge of every individual.”

Now let’s come back to our discussion – LION vs TIGER?

Why is the lion considered to be as king of the jungle? The question appears very frivolous and nonsensical considering as the human beings themselves crowned the lion king of the jungle while none of the animals may be even aware of such coronations. And interestingly, even the ‘lion’ itself may not know that such title has been conferred to ‘him’. But why the tiger was not considered for the title of the ‘king’ despite it being the biggest among all the cats? What is so unique for a ‘lion’?

Perhaps, the greatest management principle to term ‘lion as king of jungle (leader)’ would be the astute management knowledge of early man, and it is relevant even today after man reached a stage where he can do real estate ventures on Mars.

The following qualities of the Lion helped it to be the leader:

It is very majestic, distinguishable from the rest of the group
It protects the clan within it’s territory
The entire clan will be willing to do ‘sacrifice’ for the it
The lion den is open to others for all to discuss their problems

The Corporate Jungle

The corporates must always carry very remarkable qualities or values in the market places. The organization should be known for ethics. Secondly, another management principle to be learned from the above example by the corporates is that the lion protects each and every member of the pride from other lions as well as tolerating all the members of the pride. And hence, this philosophy of valuing and protecting the employees, the corporates must follow.

The third management principle is that all members of the pride will patiently wait for the lion to have its share first and only then they approach the meal. This proves that natural willingness for sacrifice is born only when there is genuine respect for the leader.

The lion lives in open country, and never follows the hunting strategy of ‘ambush’ like a tiger might. The message to be learned by the corporates in this regard is that they should literally conduct themselves in a fair and open manner. Hence, transparency should be understood and followed by them in belief as well as spirit.

The last and the most important management principle to see is that when the lion when loses its dominance, it retreats and the new king gets the throne. The message this conveys is that the corporate must tarnish its ‘expired beliefs’ and renew them as per requirement. If they remain strong with what they believe is right, growth and development becomes near impossible. Hence, adaptation and formation of new generation always call for the abdication of certain beliefs and values.