Managing vs Leading | Why Leadership Development Stalls

Romie Montpeirous: Welcome everyone to another episode of Leadership from the Heart. I am your host, Romy. today we're gonna get into the of why some managers, and includes like supervisors, basically people leaders, right? Never actually step into leadership. And I know that some of you listening right now may already have the title, but have never actually stepped into leadership. And today I want to talk about the difference between managing and leadership. That's this week's series. ⁓ And I say that to s to not insult anyone. I don't I don't think that if you're ha if you haven't stepped into leadership, it's probably not your fault, right? it's that leadership is not a promotion, it's an identity shift. And one of the biggest misconceptions in business is that leadership begins the moment that someone receives or is given the title or given the authority, but it doesn't, right? Authority can be given, but leadership Is developed. And so this is why so many organizations everywhere are full of people who can direct the work, who can assign the task and manage performance, but they lack in the way of how to build and create trust and develop people and navigate uncertainty and inspire this ownership thing that we keep talking about. You And like I said, today we'll be talking about the difference because ⁓ They're not the same thing. And if you don't understand the difference, you can spend many years holding a leadership title while never actually stepping into leadership. You know? And and the reason why people don't step into leadership is the reason why people do most things, It's that ⁓ managing feels safer. It feels than leadership. Most people, the, you know, they don't choose management consciously, their nervous system. ⁓ chooses it for them because it gives them certainty and predictability and control and these measurable outcomes, right? Like when X does this, I do Y, kind of a thing. Where leadership is more flowy. It lives in the gray. you know, the the the brain and the nervous system, they don't love the gray. The brain loves certainty. The nervous system loves predictability. And management is able to provide both. And there's this concept that I Thought about a couple of years ago when I first heard that not all managers are leaders. And that kind of blew my mind. Cause I mean, you know, you know that that's true. Obviously, you can see it. however, I I started questioning like, should organizations hire leaders where they need leaders and hire managers where they just need to be able to manage the performance, right? And of course, you would want to have both in one naturally. Right. where you don't necessarily have to, can you hire for what you need exactly? You know, because I think that most people, I know if they're ready to confront the feeling grounded in the uncertain times. I think they can get there, obviously. but when something feels uncertain, most people naturally move towards control, right? And more control. ⁓ Can look like a a number of different things. It could look like more meetings, more oversight, more checking in. I need to get involved more. You need to ask for my approval more. And it's not because they're bad leaders, right? It's just because they don't know to create safety within themselves without having that extra oversight or the need for approval or or anything else like that. And it's just how do I feel safe? And if we can just take a step back and just realize that everyone is always trying to move either towards pleasure or away from pain. And so most people's reactions. ⁓ are are are one of the two, right? Now I say that to give grace and then I'm gonna take it away, but I am gonna also say in the same breath it is your responsibility if you're gonna be a people leader to regulate yourself, to go look at that stuff, to find a way to become emotionally intelligent, to become relationally intelligent, because it's nobody else's issue that you have issues. It's nobody else's issue that you have issues. Everyone has issues. Everyone has a story. had to come up from somewhere. The fact that you have that is not anybody's problem, but yours. So I think that the number one thing we could say is to stop making it other people's problem, right? And and just understand I think understanding your awareness is the biggest thing, right? And I think understanding where you come from. I'm a very, I don't want to say laissez-faire. kind of leader, but I am a very free, you know, I trust everyone, just do the right thing. Here's the expectation kind of leader. And I know that I I lack structure in some ways. And so when somebody my team, first of all, I hire for structure because I know that I lack structure. So I hire someone who has more structure than I do. And when they bring me something that says, hey, I know that you're pretty relaxed about this, but I think there needs to be some structure, I am a thousand percent open needing structure because I know that I lack structure in some in some ways. And so I that's the meaning of being aware, right? And anytime structure is introduced to us, we fly off the handle because we don't understand. And so, you know, heading back to our podcast episode, because I went off on a rant, is ⁓ that management reduces ⁓ Uncertainty and leash leadership, the difference is that leadership learns to move through uncertainty. that's what I mean by knowing yourself and understanding that when you step into leadership, meaning you're going to now influence people and not force them to do things because you're the boss, you're going to influence them and want them to do it so that they have commitment. You to know yourself enough to know what you're one offering two. where you navigate well and where you navigate not so well because you can ask for help wherever you are and you're not gonna navigate that well and at this time I want you to like think about your own leadership and think about what happens when pressure increases. Do you become more controlling or do you try to reiterate and clarify the expectations? Because that's gonna tell you a lot about yourself. And and I know we've been talking about pattern recognition and it's It is my new thing as with neuroscience because I think it's helping us understand the brain in a way that we've never really quite understood it before. And it's definitely helped me unfold in my own understanding of myself and my own healing journey of ⁓ why run the same patterns. And so once you start to see your patterns, once you see it for the first time, you can't unsee it. And then once you start to understand your patterns, you start to move differently. You know, and this is where a lot of leaders get stuck. It's because management often says, you know, I need to make sure this gets done, where leadership is is asking, how do I build someone to have the capability to do this without me? And those are two very different, very different questions. I know we've talked about the need of being needed, which is a real thing, right? That's for everyone. I go through it myself where You know, if I feel like I'm not needed anymore, I start to question my worth and I start to question all these things and I start to make up stories. but that's just also a lesson, right? That's it's it's you're introduced to this new thing so you can have this feeling that you can actually take a look at and say, Well, what what does that mean? And then you can see what actions you want to take because you want to be needed or wanted. ⁓ but this is the kind of work that we're doing inside of this leadership thing with With leadership with me and leadership from the heart, we're we're going into the real discussion of, I want to do this, and I know that this is a reaction from a feeling that I felt, and now I just want to understand one, why I feel that. Two, is this action that I'm about to take because I feel uncomfortable or because it's what's best for the team? And when you can decipher those two things, and you could stop moving to just satisfy your reactivity. The world will open up for you in a whole different way. Cause now you're standing in integrity, right? Now you've once you've seen the pattern and you stand in integrity with it, then you're gonna start moving for what's best for the business, for what's best for the team, for what's best for yourself as well. Because once you start to regulate, there are less and less things that can affect you. And then you can move towards the goal without all this extra baggage and extra things that you're carrying. And this is why. Healing yourself and going through this journey is such an important piece of all of life, but in leadership, because you can get to the goal much faster if you remove your excess baggage. And the excess baggage is the stuff that you carried that you learned was part of you, but is not actually part of you. We all have these and and and and no fact-based fears that come up that. We don't even question. And and I found myself questioning them in the last year or so. And once I get to the bottom of where it came from, then I'm a whole different person because the fear is no longer there for the most part. Sometimes it has to be revisited many times. but I'm a different person because now I've I've processed, I've analyzed, I see, ⁓ felt, and now we're moving on, you know, and and and now I I can see myself. in some areas leaving where I used to manage, where I used to create dependency, and now I want to create capacity. And now I want to create like now I don't want to be needed. Now I'm just like, how do I get you to be the one to to do the things and then to help develop and and things like that, you know? The challenge is that trust, having someone trust you and you trusting someone, it feels risky. Right, where control feels very safe, but you can't scale control. You can only scale and trust. And eventually every leader will reach this point where they can no longer personally carry everything because yeah, you've got promoted, sure. You could hold obviously where you were, had the capacity to hold it. But if you continue to try to do everything yourself or make it chaos, eventually it's gonna become overwhelming. And Then things start to break. And then all your balls are falling out of the air because you've only taught yourself how to carry the balls. You haven't taught the team how to do this themselves, you know? And if you're listening to this right now and you're realizing that you've been carrying more than you need to, leading from control instead of from trust, then share this episode with another leader who's also navigating the same transition. These are the conversations that we need to continue having and start having in leadership in order for us to have this revolution that we're talking about. You know, because what I've noticed is that leaders who tend to manage, right? They just when with the way you do one thing is the way you do everything. And I'm I'm a real big believer in that. It's in my book and everything. And and what I find is that leaders who manage. They often manage also optics, right? And so I don't think that managing optics is a terrible thing. I think it is needed where it's needed. And and this is an important shift because we've all been in meetings where we're we're reluctantly there because we know that nothing is gonna change after the meeting. We know that the meeting is just for a formality or a check the box. honestly, sometimes it feels like a waste of time. And and I go through this myself, you know. but you know, you have to move away from managing the things, right? Which managing a thing is also managing the way it looks, to focusing on what is actually broken and how do we fix it and processes and systems, because eventually your optics will disappear. It it'll get found out. They'll look behind the curtain and see that the Oz is just a little man, you know. or little woman and and and and then and then what? Right. And then now everything blows up, but it's because we've been putting it under the rug or putting a band-aid on it for so long instead of taking a look at what it actually means, even if it's under your watch. Yeah, I tell my team, I don't care how broken it is. I want the truth, right? Like we can't fix something that we don't know how broken it is. And I find a lot of leaders and some of the leaders that I I'm coaching currently Who they they they just don't want to look at the truth. And it's because they have, again, their identity tied to that truth, right? If it is broken and I've been the one that's here, then what does that mean about me? And the truth is it means nothing about you. It's just something you didn't know. Now you're becoming aware, and now we can fix it. That's the way I see it. I take, I take it very lightly. Of course, there are some reflections that happen afterwards that like, How do I not miss this again? How do I not miss something like this again? And yeah, you should put things in place. But I love when people point out the loophole or point out the the the thing that's broken. Cause I want to go all the way in. You're we're gonna talk about this more like once, right? We're gonna fix this now. That's really the execution part that I automatically go into. But you know, like a manager will avoid the difficult feedback because they want to preserve this harmony, but relationships don't Get better because of harmony. They get better by by breaking and repairing. so let's say that the feedback is the breaking part, and then you come back from that and you repair, and now we're stronger. You know, the leader will address the issue because they care about growth. And that's a big difference between management and leadership. You know, the manager always wants to focus on looking like they're in control, where the leader focuses on understanding the reality of where we are, because both are okay. You can walk into a broken system and fix it, or you can be involved in the broken system, not know that it was broken. Sure, there's needs to be some accountability around that. But now that I know, I can't just ignore it. And that's the biggest piece that I think I have issue with is just how can we know that something's broken and just leave it broken? I I I will never understand that unless we're saying, Leave broken for now, we've got bigger fish to fry, blah, blah, blah. Cool. I'm good with that. But the opposite I'm not so good with. So You know, just when you're thinking about management and leadership, I I really want you guys to think about the difference between the two. I've given you a few of them, but there is a real distinction, right? Management maturity says I can get results through people, where leadership maturity says I can develop people who can create results. And you do want to move from this from the the the hero in your story, which is the manager, into the leader who is the builder. Because leaders just build other leaders. Leadership looks like emotional regulation, self-awareness, trust, having the courage to have conversations, taking accountability where needed. And it's needed a lot. And that's that's the part about leadership that people don't really get, which is why we're creating a community where people can come themselves and say the thing and get the support that they may not get professionally, if we're being honest, right? Because leadership sometimes is very lonely. You have to hold yourself accountable. You have to be clear. You have to like do all these things that you know you're doing. And sometimes you just need a place to like not be that. that's why the leadership circle is gonna be one of the biggest leadership communities I for leaders just come and and get refilled. Because sometimes in organizations we don't get refilled. We're we're expected to. ⁓ Carry and it's okay. I think it's part of the the reward and the you know what comes with the job, if I'm being honest. but we do need a place. We need a place where we could come say the thing and and and and get guidance and help it feel not so heavy, you know, relational intelligence is part of it. Uncertainty tolerance is part of it. I love that term uncertainty tolerance because The level of uncertainty that you're able to lead through, that you're able to self-regulate and manage within yourself, going to dictate how far you can go. You know, I to talk a little bit about relational intelligence. Again, it's it's because I think it's it's a new term, a newer term to me at least. And I think it's going to be the new EQ. And it's the ability to create trust, connection, ownership, and psychological safety while maintaining your standards. And I think that's the whole thing, right? And then, you know, there's this other thing called the vagal authority, which is the ability to stay grounded, clear, and regulated under when pressure increases. So under pressure and when pressure increases, pressure reveals your maturity. It doesn't create it. And so leadership maturity is what remains when certainty disappears. And is important because a lot of leaders They don't do too well under pressure and it's because they feel like if they're getting it, then they should just pass it on. But you are the filter leader. You it needs to filter through you. You are the stopping point, right? You you should be able to take it, but not dish it. And I know that's a very hard concept. It's very different than the way we grew up. But, you know, the future of leadership is is more trust. It's it's there's a not there's not a lot of certainty out there. right now. And so you're going to have to find a way to create it yourself. You know, it's it's finding the courage within yourself to to find it when it's not there. Cause leadership again, guys, is not a promotion. It's not a title. It's not an org chart. It's an identity shift. And some the most successful leaders that I've ever met and that I've ever worked with are weren't the people who had the most authority. They were the people who learned how to create clarity when times felt very uncertain. they people instead of controlling them, and they built trust instead of dependence. they became instead of heroes. And you don't that But I do find that if you take the time to develop and truly develop, the people who want to be developed. you know, there we can create an an entire army of regulated leaders. And I say army and regulated at the same time. I realize that, but you know what I mean. We can create an abundance of leaders who in turn create an abundance of leaders who understand and listen and care and also get results and make a shit ton of money and profit and all the things 'cause you know me, I think that everything coexists. I everything can coexist. I don't think it has been, but I think it can. it's, know, it's not, it's not about getting promoted. It's about becoming the kind of person that leadership actually requires you to be. And no longer shying away from that, but becoming that person for yourself, for the people around you, and for your team. And with that, we end this week's episode. I hope this message found you well. Please don't forget to like, share, and subscribe. And I will see you next week on another episode of Leadership from the Heart. We'll talk soon. Bye.