Chris Mabey suggests that seperating the qualities of leaders and managers is traced back to Zaleznick (1977). Kotter (1990) reinforced this distinction, that:
good management brings order, consistency and quality to otherwise chaotic organisations
Contrasting this with leadership which is preparing the organisation for change and helping employees cope with the struggle of changing it.

But now

Despite the recession, companies are spending millions on ‘pointless and ineffective’ training systems and elearning courses. Charles Jennings says it’s about time learning managers pulled their heads out of the sand.

trainingzone.co.uk, How not to train – read this before you waste more money |TrainingZone, Jul 2009

You should read the whole article.

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Gartner Research dubbed simulation the new “killer
application” in e-learning (Lundy et al., 2002) but even
assuming the best estimates for the adoption of simulations,
they represent a tiny proportion of the annual spend in
training and education. Considerable research has been done
to evaluate the effectiveness of simulations and, by and
large, the results suggest that simulations are effective but
there are doubts about even the most fundamental claims of
the efficacy of simulations (Feinstein and Cannon, 2002)
partly because there isn’t a clear, acceptable methodology,
partly because there is no real agreement on definitions, and
partly because there is little agreement on what should be
evaluated. Burns et al. (1990) consider the multi-fold
problem with evaluating experiential pedagogies stating that
there is firstly a need to compare the efficacy to ‘traditional’
approaches, and there is a need to compare alternative
experiential pedagogies competing to achieve the same
learning. Not surprisingly, they note a paucity of solid
empirical evidence regarding the relative effectiveness of
experiential techniques. Other authors (e.g. Pierfy, 1977)
note two particular problems with respect to evaluating
simulations or experiential techniques: the first being the
conceptual problems pertaining to definitions, domain
boundaries and the theoretical basis which underpin and
frame pedagogical research. The second fundamental
problem is that there remain significant methodological
difficulties including experimental design, constraints
within the organisations and institutions, time
considerations and ethical questions associated with any
comparative study.
This paper does not intend to argue in favor of one
approach, method or definition over another but to consider
why simulations have not yet emerged as training and
education’s “killer application” and how it may be possible
to bridge from being a thwarted innovation (Zemsky &
Massy, 2004) to a disruptive technology (Christensen,
1997).

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In How the Mighty Fall, Jim Collins makes a case for why the fall of previously great companies does not negate prior research:

The principles in Good to Great were derived primarily from studying specific periods in history when the good-to-great companies showed a substantial transformation into an era of superior performance that lasted fifteen years. The research did not attempt to predict which companies would remain great after their fifteen-year run. Indeed, as this work shows, even the mightiest of companies can self-destruct.

Leading Blog: A Leadership Blog @ LeadershipNow: Confusing Principles and Approaches.

This should serve as a reminder, less that leadership research and the desire to stand by principles of good practice but there are three stages in the lives of leaders.

Great leaders and great companies begin as risk takers – they will push the boundaries and challenge the status quo. When the ‘fire in the belly’ is diminished and we rest on our laurels, we be come care takers os our business. This is especially true of any business or leader whose praises are sung from the pages of books, magazines, television or even movies. Soon follows the third stage of course, the role of under taker.

The day you or your business is identified as an example of excellence – be it a quote in a book, the cover of a magazine or a TV appearance is the day you need to sit up and take notice, forge ahead, learn from the past success and change.

CIPD – Learning and development: summary of key survey findings.

This little snippet stuns me:

According to the research, 79 per cent of Facebook-using students believed the time they spent on the site had no impact on their work.

now that is dumb!

Facebook students underachieve in exams – Telegraph.

What helps distinguish leaders and managers is about control and, quite literally, how “hands-on” you are.

When you first learn the game of golf, the chances are that you grip thew club tightly. After all this is basically holding onto a stick that you will swing through the air and hit a ball. Allowing the club to “follow-through’ – if you don’t hold on tight, the club might just go as far as the ball.

(I appreciate that many of you reading this may not have ever played golf, for you some alternatives, perhaps liken the tight grip of a golf club to:

New golfers have to learn how to ‘let go’ – to relax their grip. If a tight grip is a 10 on a scale, we want a 4 out of 10.

The same is true of leadership and the way we hold on to our people. Hold on too tight (micro manage) and people have little freedom to use their own skills and strength. Hold on too tight to the club, and it is the golfer doing all the work.

So the question is: “who should be doing the work?” The manager or leader or the member of staff? The golf club is weighted for a reason. If you allow the club to do the work, the swing and striking of the ball, becomes almost effortless. Relax your grip on your team and allow them to excel at what they do, and the work becomes almost effortless.

Once you know, as a golfer, that the club is designed to do the job of striking the ball and your job is simply to swing and allow physics do to its job, you can relax. Maintain just enough control to ensure alignment, direction and distance and the ball will fly according to the club used, and the size of the swing. If you want a long distance, you use a long club and a full swing. A short distance off the fairway onto the green requires a shorter distance club and a smaller swing. The power to achieve the distance lies in the tool being employed and the chosen swing – the rest is pure physics.

So what can we learn as a leader? Isn’t it the same. Make sure that you are using the right tool – the person needs the right skill set (and/or mindset) to do the required job. The leader’s job is to have a little control to ensure that the skills are employed in the right direction for the right distance – that’s about judging how far it is to the goal and translating that into the swing itself – in the case of people, the swing is influence and motivation… let the staff do the rest.

And just like that golf ball landing exactly where you both planned and wanted it to be for the next shot. You celebrate. Unlike golf though, praise your club and thank them for their effort. After all, they did all the work!

When we use this metaphor on our golf leadership workshops, the feedback is instant. Hold tight onto the club and the golfer has to use a great deal of effort and the ball often ends up being pulled, pushed, sliced or hooked – going two thirds of the required distance. Relax the grip maintaining directional control and the ball flies straight to the full distance of the club and swing used.

(For non-golfers… try this with a horse, hold tight, the horse will slow down even when you whip it! You dog on a short leash stays by your side whilst pulling your arm out of its socket! Your child dangles from your hand as you cross the road.)

Yet, new golfers on particular, find their grip tightening in more difficult situations. The very moment when they need to be most at ease, most truly controlling, fear envelops them, pressure builds, the grip tightens and the ball goes astray.

The same is true of business leaders under pressure. Listen to the media hype about the doom and gloom of the current economic situation and fear can easily creep in to the mind. Many leaders respond by tightening their grip on their people and their business, believing that the tighter they hold, the more control they have and the more likely they are to survive and pull through. Albeit, they expend huge amounts of effort, feel incredibly stressed, and more likely to explode a blood vessel!

Tough times in business are better served by leaders keeping a clear head, a loose grip, maintain direction and let your people do what they do best. Let’s face the truth here, even a behemoth the size of AIG can’t control the market, what makes you think that you can? My advice, ignore the noise (media doom and gloom), look for the opportunities and focus on the goal and it’s direction, choose the right club, loosen your grip and let your club do the work.

Loosen your grip and you’ll have more control.

Powerpoint we’ve been fooled

Great Leaders Don’t Always Make Great CEOs

Some people are simply not cut out for leadership – what should you be aiming to achieve in your career. Just because the compensation system is flawed and rewards climbing the managerial hierarchy does not mean that everyone should do so.

Find out your potential and how to best plan your career by joining GAPPS now.