When you manage, you learn you have a few resources that you always need to keep an eye on: time, materials, money, and people. The problem is, you have to manage people completely differently from how you manage time, materials, and money.
I realize I’ve written on this before, but I really think this is where managers who are otherwise good completely fall down.
People are people not human resources. You manage people. Living, breathing, feeling, imperfect, lovable, exasperating people. People will enliven you, deaden you, excite you, disappoint you, thrill you, and contort you into many different shapes. In short people will have a profound impact on you. As a leader, always remember you are also doing this to them. (Source )
People are people. Their skills are resources. It’s their time you’re managing. They’re unpredictable. They’re feeling. Many of them try their best against next to impossible odds.
You cannot manage people the way you manage everything else. You have to remember that you’re a person, and that the “resource” you’re dealing with is a person, too. They deserve the same respect and application of common sense that you would expect.
You also have to remember that if you continually forget that you’re managing people instead of one more resource, people can find somewhere to go where they’ll be seen as someone who has a lot of relevant skills as opposed to a number on a piece of paper.
Posted by Rebecca as Leadership and management at 7:54 AM EDT
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Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.- Peter Drucker
The guys over at Slacker Manager are asking what the difference is between management and leadership. Reading over the comments, it seems that no one agrees. For some people, the two are synonymous. For others, there’s a distinct difference.
For me, managing and leading are two different things. Managing is overseeing things, making sure everything is running smoothly, making decisions and changes to keep everything running smoothly. It’s about processes. It’s operational.
Leadership, on the other hand, is an underlying set of governing principles. Where management is often something everyone can put their finger on, leadership is a bit more elusive. You know someone is a bad manager because they aren’t handling resources well. You suspect someone is a bad leader because it feels like the person never really knows where they’re going, and that translates to confusion in the ranks.
Management is a practice. Leadership is a trait.
Posted by Rebecca as Uncategorized, Leadership and management at 7:49 AM EDT
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Freelance Switch (which has graciously linked to CareerNiche for a while now) has this great article on good ways to build your skills.
Regardless of whether you’re a freelancer, an entrepreneur, or an employee, it’s always important to work on strengthening the skills you already have, and learning new tricks along the way. It keeps you on top of your field. It keeps you motivated, and helps avoid those energy-sapping ruts. It can also make you look more attractive to the people you want to do business with by showing your versatility and commitment to your field.
Skill-building can also be a great form of networking. When you look to others to learn something, they get to know who you are in the process. This can help generate leads. It can also help form collaborative relationships, and it gives you people you can refer others to. Word-of-mouth and sincerely trying to help others are always good things.
Try to incorporate one or two of the suggestions into your routine. See how they’ll help you not only become better at what you already do so well, but how they can benefit you in unexpected ways.
Posted by Rebecca as Skill building at 8:18 AM EDT
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I tend to fluctuate on whether or not I’m productive, and I have yet to find what defeats my low periods. My inner geek thinks this method might be worth looking into, even if it looks like it would take a bit of work to apply (and I’m not sure where I would put it and track it to make sure I was following it).
The idea is a simple enough one. You write conditional statements that look a bit like programming, and then test each condition each day. If you fail the condition, you do whatever was being tested.
Personally, I think you’d have to implement it in such a way that it could easily be tracked. That’s were I run into trouble when my motivation runs low. I’ll forget to record something, and then I’ll realize I forgot to record it, which will lead me to no longer care. Then my motivation will come back, and I’ll try to implement everything all over again.
But that’s just me. Perhaps the geeky (or even less geeky) among you will take to this and realize it is a fantastic way to stay on track.
Posted by Rebecca as Creativity, inspiration, and motivation at 8:15 AM EDT
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I suspect I need to take advantage of these myself. I know I’ve said I need to find a new job, but it’s becoming imperative that I find one (I’d actually hoped it wouldn’t come to that).
If you find yourself in my shoes, it’s always better to be networking already, and it’s always better when you’re networking to give people everything they need to know about you. This allows them to know both how to help you out, and how you can help them out in the process (always a good thing).
Honestly, I think everyone really should write one of these pages about themself. It’s a great informative tool, and I’ve found in trying to start my own that you really are forced to think about your career and your goals.
Posted by Rebecca as Changing careers, Networking at 8:22 AM EDT
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