Manager vs leader

[Zoe Girl]

I have been reading a lot about this, mostly short articles and lists. I have a new staff and i want to start off on the right foot with a new team. It is hard to not also constantly look at my manager and evaluate when i should just take care of what is in my control.

So i went from a new years retreat into 4 days of camp, the first day i got 17,000 steps. I wasn't able to set up ahead of time because of holidays, and our planning was not as great as i wanted. But we got 35 kids and had a lot of fun. Pretty intense. I felt like a leader when i kept helping my staff get better at her tone, and when i called her on it. I felt more like a manager when i felt like i was dragging my staff through things. My long term staff that i totally count on is also a little passive aggressive, or just checks out. One thing that happened was staff didn't have everything they needed for a project, some things like bowls are used for many projects, but they get set up time to check their supplies and said nothing, or were confused about times and said nothing, but talked to her. So now there is a communication thing, so it seems being a leader is more complicated. Btw these staff work at another site and i borrowed them for camp

Okay off the week

[Tammy]

Both Manager and leader skills are needed - one is detail oriented and one is big picture visionary - but both are necessary.

Some of the things I've read govevthe impression that if you operate like a manager that's not as good. I say hogwash. Somebody had to make sure the details are in place - or implementation suffers and people get disillusioned about vision casting.

A person needs to use both skill sets.

[Zoe Girl]

very good point Tammy, I hadn't thought of that. I know I have struggled with new supervisor and one thing is that his knowledge of the job and his skills are low. Lots of warmth and empathy and teambuilders are not going to make up for all of that. I miss the competence of my previous managers, just knowing the answer to a question and having some confidence! I see our department really focusing on talking about soft skills, not so much in practice.