Is it better to be a good leader or a good manager? To excel you have to be both.

• Author: Wiesner, Pat
• Position: ON MANAGEMENT

Frank has his organization on a tight leash. Everyone knows their job because it has been well described for them, when they are to do it and how they are to do it.

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The year is laid out on paper, the budgeting process flows from the top down based on company goals and is approved by everyone involved and put into place. Targets, pay, bonuses and marketing expenditures are set by Frank and passed by everyone for agreement.

Once the budget is finished, then monthly and quarterly goals are set, pay and bonuses are set, and everyone has a document that they agreed to, that they will be measured by and be paid by.

When all is said and done, Frank has a system where he has done the best possible job of solving problems before the fact. He and his group will be safe and successful barring economic upheaval (which he cannot be responsible for). People like working for Frank because of his relaxed, plan-ahead approach to things. But some of his people wish they had more say and that all the decisions weren't made at the top.

Ann, on the other hand, wants very much to be successful, doesn't care as much about being safe, and has her group organized mostly around the strengths of people. She looks for strengths in people and tries to build a job for this person that will fit. She spends a lot of time getting to know her people to find out what they dream of, because she thinks that if she can relate their job to this, they will be more successful, and thus the company will be, too.

Her budgeting process flows from the bottom up. She considers everyone's ideas when setting targets, pay, bonuses, etc. When all is said and done, Ann will have a budget that will reflect what she expects to accomplish this year, but she expects that creative outbursts from her group will put them over the top.

Ann would rather be talking about a new idea than "performance versus budget" any day. People like working for Ann because it's exciting, changing all the time and mostly...