12 Ways to Start Leading and Stop Managing

Happy New Year and welcome to the first episode of Innovators on Tap for 2020!

In the spirit of the new year, we decided to create a special episode where we take the best insights from the show so far, and help you apply them to become a better leader in the year ahead.

While many of us make some type of New Years resolution about what we’re gonna do better …did you ever wonder where this tradition started? I did so I asked Google: “Where did the first new years resolution tradition come from:

 “The ancient Babylonians are said to have been the first people to make New Year’s resolutions, some 4,000 years ago”

Come to find out they were also the first to hold celebrations in honor of the new year—though for them the year began not in January but in mid-March, when the crops were planted.

A similar practice occurred in ancient Rome, after Julius Caesar changed the calendar and established January 1st as the beginning of the new year. January is named for Janus, the two-faced god whose spirit inhabited doorways and arches.  

The Romans believed that Janus symbolically looked backwards into the previous year and ahead into the future. So the Romans offered sacrifices to the deity and made promises of good conduct for the coming year.

New Year’s resolutions today are a mostly secular practice. Instead of making promises to the gods, most people make resolutions simply to themselves, and focus on self-improvement. Research suggests that almost half of Americans make New Year's Resolutions, but less than 10 percent are successful at achieving their goal.

While that’s better than nothing, we’re going to aim a little higher in 2020.  Let’s do something that matters and let’s really stick with it.

So…If you want to make a bigger impact on those around you, whether that be something as big as developing technology that could change the world or as small as an idea that simply makes your community a better place to live; Then I would like to suggest that your New Years Resolution be to focus on how to start leading and stop managing in the year ahead…

But before I go too far, I should probably explain the difference between leadership and management and why it matters…

Management is getting someone to do what you want to deliver a predictable outcome. 

Leadership is getting people to work together to do something that might not even be possible.

For example, In sports, there are game managers who stick to the coach’s plan and try to limit mistakes. And there are leaders that adapt the plan as circumstances change and inspire their teammates to take risks in an attempt to make a big play. 

When it comes to becoming a better leader,  I want to remind you that it starts with your mindset.  You’ve got to be willing to push yourself to go beyond your comfort zone and you have to believe that: 

“Everything you do today can be done better tomorrow”

If it doing this doesn’t make you a little uneasy or give you a butterfly moment like one of our recent guests, you’re probably not pushing yourself hard enough. I’m not suggesting that management is bad and leadership is good, but they are certainly different and achieve very different outcomes.

And why does this matter? …Well, if you want to do something new, that might change the world,  the principles of management are NOT going to get you there. In fact, they’re actually going to get in your way!

Think about it .. whether you realize it or not, you’ve likely spent most of your life being trained to think like a manager. 

As a student, you are taught to follow specific steps to solve a problem and get the right answer. But what happens if the problem has never been solved before and you’re looking for new answers? 

In business, you are rewarded for reducing risk and meeting the plan. But what happens when you want to pursue an idea that others think is impossible? I believe most people want to lead, but they don’t know how to get started. 

If you’ve been listening to the podcast, you’ve already heard some great advice.  And what I thought would be helpful is to share the 12 best leadership ideas from the podcast so far. 

We’ve gone back to every episode and found some great quotes from different guests that get at this idea of being a better leader.These ideas are not some theory from a book, but things our guests learned first-hand.  

If they seem like common sense to you, great.  But I would bet that most of us spend our days managing, not leading.  And keep in mind that life is short. If you don't lead, who will?