When I was new to management, I wasn't doing the whole job.
I see this often: people focus on only a slice of the full spectrum of leadership, a term I've had some questions about from my last post. I'm curious if you see something missing from the spectrum, let me know in the comments to my LinkedIn post on this topic.
The spectrum of leadership is a few layers which form abstractions from "The Work", which is the layer where the team's output is created. Now, the leader might be directly moving The Work forward, but I exclude that from leadership because some leaders don't do that. Controversial point, come argue with me in the comments if you want.
Like all models, this model is wrong, but I’ve also found it useful. Here’s how I draw the layers:
Supervision - observing, encouraging, and guiding to best practice. Supervision ensures people show up when they are needed, with the best tools you can afford, ready to work. Supervision checks to make sure the onboarding process is going smoothly. It notices if we are all doing what we said we would do, and if not it triggers the appropriate response. Do you know the quality of the work output, and do the people doing the work understand it too? That’s supervision.
Administration - Driving forward by pulling on the levers of the machine of your system and process as it is. Reports, decks, and spreadsheets live here. Performance reviews and budgets live here. Administration is where you deliver your part of the onboarding process. Administration asks equally, “Can we see our progress?”, “Is what we’re doing creating the results we expect?”, and “Are we maintaining our work environment?”.
Management - Management creates the process and makes sure it is fit for purpose. Hiring activity in terms of sourcing, interviewing, filling roles. Management makes sure there is an onboarding process (teaching new members the system), makes sure there’s work in the inbox and that we understand it. It finds risks and exceptions. It asks, “Why does this keep happening” and “How can we make that happen more often”.
Leadership - Creating goals, strategy, and alignment. Does your team know why they are a team, or what they’re trying to bring about? Do you know why they get up in the morning and go to work here, on your team? Do they care about each other’s wellbeing and their role in the shared mission? Do you have a shared mission? No, really, is it shared? Is it the right mission? Leadership does the sensemaking work of describing boundaries and interfaces between concepts in the chaotic soup of the future.
See, a lot of practices show up in multiple layers for different roles, but the intention and focus of the layers is different. You can use the model to see how someone is using one layer well but neglecting another - even if that someone is yourself. What’s your strongest layer? What do you feel you need more of?