One who leads by example or one who walks through the area and tells you to work smarter? By leads by example I mean he will ask who needs help ( this Presupposes he is good at what he is helping with) and stops to help where he can. The other is a type of boss that when he passes through a work area and see's that some one needs help. He will tell them to read up on the subject and work smarter.
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I think, In addition to rewarding, giving them recognition in the group is just as important. Personally I prefer recognition to reward and will take both. But then again would the boss be playing favorites?
The only reward I'm interested in for being good at my job is more salary, if that's coupled with more responsibility fine. Out in front, for a pat on the head doesn't do anything for me, besides it increases the perception of brown nosing and favouritism if not the fact. If there's a 'bonus' on offer it needs to be based on hard numbers on a level playing field, otherwise it's counter-productive. Personally I'd rather see the team given a night out less frequently that the best performer once a month, cutting individuals out of the pack for special treatment does not help team building. That's leading vs managing again though. A team is only as strong as it's weakest member, so you should put effort into improving them, not keeping your best member sweet.
Ever heard of Maslow's pyramid ? Some like cash... some like credits... some simply want more works (it'll make sense if you substitute works with challenges *smile*)
Easier said than done isn't it ? Why ? Cause it's ideal. I didn't say it's wrong.. but you know what ideal means... And there's an assumption there you forgot to mention now isn't there ? *wicked smile*
Two completely different talents but often confused. Got interviewed for a Team Leader position and was asked how I'd discipline poor performance in the team.
Told them I'd give myself a good kicking for not leading them to perform better, didn't get the job.
Now ask them to define Leader before I answer any questions.
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Not versus... must have multiple personality... :)
When you're on the top (not when you lead... when you no longer have boss) you have the luxury of being a leader period. But everybody under don't have the luxury to be JUST manager. When you are in the 'middle' you have to be both a leader AND a manager. The former in my opinion is much much harder task than the later...
A lot of managers seem to confuse leadership and management as though they were one and the same thing. You can be a good one of either without being good at the other. Those with both of course tend to do quite well. You can only lead someone to follow their own best interest and that's been known to conflict with management on more than one occasion.
I used to have a boss who was extremely knowledgable in technology.
However, he didn't know and didn't care about the details, as he has several hundred people working under him to take care of that.
He was excellent at comprehending the impact of different software/systems and how we could utilize those systems to improve our business processes. Revolutionary software which other people would overlook because "well, what can it do for us?", he would look at, play with a bit, then say, "Hmmmm, this can be used for 'x' and 'y'. Why don't we put it in?"
Then he would call in one of us (the network/system admins), and say basically, "Have you ever heard of this product?"
The answer more often than not was, "No."
He would then give you a week, two weeks, a month, or even two months, depending on how long he thought it would take, to learn and implement a full fledged production quality system in a development environment.
At that time, we would "present" the system to him, and have to go through a basic interrogation of the capabilities, tech specs, requirements, etc... and most importantly, how much it would cost to provide an actual live production system, specific ways we could improve the business processes with it, and an ROI covering various scenarios.
He never taught me anything technical, however, this boss taught me how to think, and even now, I look back across the many years since I worked for him, and thank him for helping me learn how to think around the issues to get at the solution, and how to see a products possibilities as a business solution rather than a techie play toy.
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Who do you think is the better boss?