Don't confuse leadership with

management
Steve Taylor explains how to be a better leader and build great teams

Great leaders
have vision, self-management and can get out of the way, says Steve Taylor.
Photograph: Tom Jenkins Tom Jenkins/Tom Jenkins
Steve Taylor
Wednesday 12 September 2012 17.35 BSTLast modified on Wednesday
21 May 201408.40 BST

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Leadership and team development are siblings of the business world, but
how to be effective in both are usually the questions first asked by the

business leaders of today. Before looking at the bottom line, securing

investment or breaking into international markets, business leaders in the
creative industries are most concerned by leadership and team
development.
This was a finding from research released this month by Nesta that looked
at the attitudes of creative industry executives towards business operations.
It found that the top two rated questions an executive would ask a business
mentor would be: how can I be a better leader; and how do I build and
develop the best team?
This year, I have been asked to be a mentor for Nesta's Creative Business
Mentor Network, and the findings of the survey prompted me to think
about the advice that businesses in the creative industries will be looking
for.

How can I be a better leader?

It's worth distinguishing leadership from management. It's a real issue in
early-stage companies, not least because the size of the team frequently
means these two functions have to be performed by the same person. A
founder may drive the business strategically but also give instructions to
a small team of developers or designers, who perhaps are too young and
inexperienced to manage themselves.
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Plus, there is no one else to do it. Even when there's more than one
business owner, the usual scenario is that sometime early on in getting the
business going the question was asked: who's going to run this thing? And
the others took a pace backwards, leaving the most organised and numerate
one in the frame. I call this person 'the reluctant MD' and they are
everywhere in creative businesses.
This awkward hybrid, the leader/manager, can helm a fledgling creative
enterprise only so far along the path of growth, until it reaches a point in
size and complexity where leadership and management add up to more
than one full-time job. One common solution is for the person to work the
hours of one-and-a-half people again, we all know people like this.
We also know that it is not sustainable. Stress, exhaustion, botched home
lives, tattered relationships, anxiety, indecision and errors at work are the
recurring symptoms of this state.
So leadership must be separated from management, sooner or later, for the
sake of everyone's sanity and good health. My own prescription for this
malaise is to develop the more capable and mature people on the team to
run the business, together as a team, day-to-day. Generally, they are
already there, invariably in positions that are unequal to their abilities; held
down by 'flat' organisational structures, by control-obsessed founders and
reactive short-term thinking. The most demanding task is always to get the
leader/manager to trust their team, to learn how to delegate, empower and
let go. It's a massive emotional wrench for many owners, convinced that
they are the only person who can run the business.
So, if it is possible to free up a founder to become a leader, what do they
need in order to play that role? It's a long list, so I'll focus on three things
that are essential: vision, self-management and getting out of the way.
There's an old adage that you cannot lead if you don't know where you're
going. Correct. Yet it is surprising how many entrepreneurs have no idea or
image of where they want to get to. They often have numbers for
turnover, net profit, staff numbers, how many international offices or
whatever but no real sense of what the destination looks and feels like.
I get them to draw pictures, which some find surprisingly difficult. Vision
is, literally, an image however crude of the thing you want to create.

Most leaders could, if they chose, get a secure, comfortable and well-paid
full-time job. So they have chosen this much harder path for a reason.
They're heading somewhere, and I work with them to make them aware of
it.
Vision does not only give the leader a sense of purpose, meaning and
direction; it is crucial in defining a differentiated offer and positioning for
the business. It is essential to motivate and inspire the team. And it leads to
road maps and business plans the practical instruments for organising
the realisation of vision the getting-there.

How do I build and develop the best team?

Start with managing yourself. Self-management might seem an odd thing
for a leader to focus on, but you soon see its importance when a leader lacks
it. The Greek philosopher Epictetus established this way of thinking two
and a half millennia ago, but it's best summed up in this 19th century
version: "Who is fit to govern others? He who governs himself."
You cannot lead others effectively if you are not aware of, and actively
managing, your own emotional state. If your internal workings tend
towards insecurity and anxiety, you will be an autocratic, controlling and
untrusting leader who repeatedly slips back into managing others' work for
them. If you are needy and insecure, your leadership will be distorted by
wanting people to like you, and your desire for approbation will engender
weak decision-making and indulgence of under-performing favourites. The
individual variations are infinite, but the core principle remains the same.
Finally, the necessity of 'getting out of the way' I'm indebted here to the
influential business philosopher Peter Koestenbaum, who has stated that a
key function of a leader is to develop the individual freedom of the others.
When working as a business leader, it is my goal and I fail, frequently to
never tell anyone what to do. That's a manager's job.
The leader ensures that the conditions organisational structure,
processes, infrastructure, clarity of roles and responsibilities, training and
personal development, culture etc are all in place to enable the
individuals on the team to do, to their highest ability, what they are there to

do. There may well be some upfront work needed to help those individuals
see their tasks clearly. That in itself is a job for the empathetic leader.
But once all those conditions are in place there is absolutely no doubt about
the leader's next action. They have to get out of the way, and find the next
challenge for the business, the next steps on the journey, the latest iteration
of the vision. Once the team really gets going, it's back to the drawing board
for the leader.
Steve Taylor is part-time chief executive of The Neighbourhood and a
mentor for Nesta's Creative Business Mentor Network, which is open for
applications until 13 September 2012 apply and find out more here