Leadership and management can often be misunderstood to be the same thing and it is easy to see why. Both are essential roles to have in a well-functioning organisation, society, and life in general. A manager manages people and line managers are seen at all levels of an organisation and tend to manage a sub-team within that organisation. They are responsible for setting goals, providing feedback, ensuring team efficiency and handling most day-to-day functions.
Leaders, on the other hand, do not have to have an official managerial role within an organisation – anybody can lead. However, good leaders tend to make good managers. Leaders facilitate effective working through relationship building and empowering the people around them. To lead is to inspire those around you to want to apply the best version of themselves to whatever they are doing.
At Roffey Park Institute we deliver learning and development programmes, two being our Management Essentials and Leadership Essentials. We have broken it down into the 5 key differences between the two programmes to help you understand which course will best suit you in your context and needs, whatever stage in your career you may be.
Who are the programmes aimed at?
Firstly, whilst of course the best managers tend to be great leaders and great leaders tend to make good managers, our programmes do have a slightly different target audience. Management Essentials is aimed at aspiring managers or first-line managers. Those new to a managerial or supervisory role or potential new managers who want to learn people management skills. This programme is not for senior leaders or experienced managers.
Leadership Essentials is aimed at those who are leading for the first time and require answers to the challenges of their new role. Someone who may or may not be in a managerial role but wants to learn the skills and tools to influence and lead sidewards, upwards and downwards and build key relationships. This programme is not for experienced leaders or leaders who have a defined view or interest in the theory of leadership.
The skills and capabilities developed
Both programmes facilitate the learning of similar yet different skills and capabilities, both highly relevant to today’s working contexts. Management Essentials involves developing a solid grounding in the basics of people management. This involves what constitutes bad people management, the mindset and confidence to manage (especially during challenges), time management, delegating work, the power of feedback and importantly ideas about self and commonly having to deal with things without having specific training on it.
Alternatively, Leadership Essentials looks deeper at a personal transition level – a programme of self-discovery and self-knowledge. This involves the exploration of emotional intelligence and the development of communication and resilience skills. This programme looks at leading others and how influence, power and motivation can help individuals and groups. This is all done whilst understanding and relating to your leadership context throughout.
Understanding context
Managers in organisational settings have a wide range of contexts and challenges to cope with nearly on a daily basis. Recently with the emergence of hybrid teams and hybrid working, managers, especially new managers, have struggled. Remote work results in more task-related delegation which can damage motivation, for example. This, combined with the larger societal context, understanding mental health, diversity and inclusion has become an essential part of a manager’s toolkit. This is all applied in the learnings of the Management Essentials programme.
Leadership Essentials takes a different approach. This programme is a more intimate and dialogic learning experience. Understanding that everyone’s leadership context is completely different, we facilitate a safe space for participants to explore their own questions about leadership and what makes an authentic leader. We openly encourage participants to find their own leadership perspective, relevant to their own experiences, challenges and needs.
Our approach to learning
Roffey Park’s approach to learning does not vary much from programme to programme. Our purpose is to create healthy and sustainable people and workplaces. During the Management Essentials programme, the learning is experiential. This means participants learn by reflecting and by doing. During this programme, participants learn from their peers in dialogic group settings as well as the use of mindtools and models underpinned by research. For example, a research paper published by Roffey Park Institute – What Is Effective Line Management?
Leadership Essentials is similar, facilitating a dialogic and responsive environment for participants to bring their own challenges into the classroom. Likewise, this programme is very interactive, using mindset practice tools to help participants develop competencies, awareness, emotional intelligence and a growth mindset.
What’s next?
Both the Management Essentials and Leadership Essentials are commonly used as stepping-stone programmes, with Roffey Park offering management and leadership programmes that target more experienced managers and leaders as well as the skills and capabilities required to become one. The follow-on programme for those who have completed Management Essentials is the Manager as Coach Programme. Manager as a coach is a management style that offers more flexibility and range in building relationships, developing staff and maximising efficiency and productivity.
The next two programmes for those who have completed the Leadership Essentials programme are the Leadership Development Programme followed by the Clear Leadership Programme. Leadership Development supports middle managers to balance personal support, challenge and feedback with the knowledge, skills and tools needed to work effectively at both strategic and operational levels. Clear Leadership, based on the globally renowned work of Dr Gervase Bushe, will transform participants’ leadership, emotional intelligence, self-reflection, and communication skills, providing them with the possibility to achieve relational mastery.
Don’t miss out on the chance to develop your managerial and leadership skills. Get in touch today and we can help you decide which programme best suits you.
