Surface Ripples

Manager Or Leader? Which Are You?

Over the time I’ve spent with clients one thing has become clear: you reap what you sew. By this I mean that leadership style has a direct impact on service standards, customer satisfaction, staff morale, efficiency and overall profitability.

Too many leaders “manage by memo” or take the “Do as I say, not as I do” approach. Another aspect of poor leadership is ineffective delegation or delegating what you don’t want to do yourself. The British army teaches its young officers never to ask their men to do that which they’re not prepared to do themselves. Leadership in the armed forces comes by example and respect is earned. In civilian life, many still believe that it is owed to their position because the position is higher up the ranks.

If a leader wants to see certain standards in their team / department / company, they need to set those standards and follow them themselves, not tolerating any exceptions or dissent. Some may “rebel” to start with to see how far one’s determination goes. The fatal mistake is to back off; if a particular standard is important to you as a leader, insist on it. Speak to the person in question and, if you can’t reach an understanding, point out that they are welcome to join another team if they don’t like your regime. If others see that you will back off in favour of one person, your credibility is lost forever.

I recently saw an article from the Federation of Small Businesses stating that the top five skills in which management were investing were sales / marketing and PR, IT, financial, planning and lastly legal and regulatory. Leadership / Management came seventh after “Other (Sector Expertise)”. Customer Service came tenth. In other words, we have a lot of managers who are experts in their field and can sell you anything, but know little about leadership and less about serving the people who buy their product or service.

Sound familiar?

I have spent more than half my life working in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With more than 20 years in the world financial services industry running different service, operations and lending businesses, I started my own Performance Management Consultancy and work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email . My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of services.

Labels: Customer Care, Selling, Strategy

posted by William Martin @ 16:30