“Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.”

Stephen Covey

The phrase ‘performance management’ often conjures up feelings of dread, the connotation being that this means managing somebody out of the business. Whilst sadly in some organisational cultures this proves to be the case, the good news is that many organisations work on the premise that we all need our performance to be managed, regardless of our experience and ability.

One of the most common and perfectly reasonable questions asked by people transitioning from a single contributor role to a management role is which management style(s) should I use?

It’s a weird old concept that time seems to fly when we’re having fun and we don’t want it to, yet when we would like the clock to tick down, time seems to drag its feet in excruciating fashion.

As Laura Vanderkam tells us in her engaging TED talk there are 168 hours in a week. If we factor in working a 40-hour week and sleeping for an average of 8 hours a night, that still leaves us with 72 hours a week for other things.

Scratch beneath the surface of what most business owners and senior leaders would like their organisation to achieve and you would be hard-pressed to find an answer that didn’t include the words profit and revenue. Even the most purpose-led of organisations need profit and revenue to succeed in their mission, so this is by no means a criticism, merely an observation.

It would not be the most controversial of statements to claim that most, if not all successful businesses attribute some of their success to strong leadership, albeit many of the best leaders are quick to highlight the contributions of the teams that they lead.