Managing people involves maintaining the status quo, focusing on planning, organizing, and coordinating tasks to achieve specific goals. It is all about efficiency, process, and ensuring the team meets its objectives. Leading people, on the other hand, is about inspiring and motivating them. Leaders create a vision for the future and guide their team towards it. They emphasize innovation, change, and growth, encouraging their team to exceed expectations and reach their full potential. Managers ensure things are done right; leaders ensure the right things are done. Good leaders often need to be good managers, and vice versa, but the emphasis and approach differ.

Empathy and excellent communication skills are crucial in effective organizational leadership. The ability to genuinely connect with people sets exceptional leaders apart. Listening to your team and allowing team members to bring their authentic selves to the

table unlocks trust, leading to a deeper understanding of the organization’s strategy and direction, inspiring them towards a mutually beneficial goal. Sales teams that feel heard, understood, and supported are often more motivated, innovative, and successful, which

in turn leads to stronger retention rates, improved performance and promotability. By creating more meaningful professional experience for their team members leaders will also often create a more meaningful experience customers and all other stakeholders.

Gerry Lubanszky

Executive Coach & Goto Market Consultant