I’m going through my bag which has lots of Agile2009 notes, but found this article from Business Week in the process. It seems apt after spending a week with people that associated themselves often as ‘developers’ or ‘testers’ and only a few ‘member of the development team (commonly known as the developer-tester)’.

  • Corporate America has had too much of fancy leadership disconnected from plain old management.
  • It became fashionable some years ago to separate “leaders” from “managers”— you know, distinguishing those who “do the right things” from those who “do things right.”
  • U.S. businesses now have too many leaders who are detached from the messy process of managing.
  • You’re a manager with serious, informed doubts about a strategy, but the leadership is too removed from the fray to hear you. (Sound (too) familiar to anyone?)
  • Studies show that vital information is typically transmitted to a CEO informally—orally, often, rather than in formal reports. Leaders removed from managing aren’t going to get these messages.
  • Detached leaders tend to be more concerned with impressing outsiders than managing within.
  • A robust company is not a collection of leftover “human resources.” It’s a community of engaged human beings.
  • Being an engaged leader means you must be reflective while staying in the fray—the hectic, fragmented, never-ending world of managing.
  • Instead of distinguishing leaders from managers, we should encourage all managers to be leaders. And we should define “leadership” as management practiced well.

Or where are you on this spectrum? Manager? Leader? Or a Manager/Leader?