Perspectives: Leaders, Stratigists and Managers

This posting provides some perspectives on leadership vs. management and tries to provide a definition of a strategist.

Great Leaders
In my experience, great leaders can "Motivate people into action" and lead with soft (people) skills. You will get as many different opinions of what makes a great business leader as you have "experts", but here are some traits that I think most great leaders posses.
     1. They are typically drivers or expressives
     2. Visionary (cast vision and direction)
     3. Strategic (think big picture)
     4. Success
     5. Opportunity maker
6. People oriented (soft skills)
7. Role modeling
8. Conceptual
9. Autocratic
10. Charismatic
11. Thinking
12. Free-form
13. Front Wheel
14. Goals (results) oriented
15. Directing
16. Boundaries
17. Humanistic
18. Innovation
19. Subjective
20. Inspiring

Great Managers
In contrast to great leaders, my experience that great managers are good at "converting resources to results" - they are process oriented instead of people oriented. Here are some of the traits that I have found in great managers that I have worked with.
1. They tend to be analyticals and amiables
2. Tactician (small picture - directions)
3. Individual
4. Victories
5. Problem solver (dream catcher)
6. Task oriented
7. Decision making
8. Focused
9. Democratic
10. Bureaucratic
11. Doing
12. Structured
13. Back wheel
14. Objectives
15. Coaching
16. Policies
17. Systematic
18. Organization
19. Objective
20. Demanding


Great Strategists
If a business is lucky enough to have both a great leader and great managers, they are positioned for success. Often times a company does not have the resources for both. A strategist
can work with great leaders to catch and deliver vision, they work will with managers to cast and manage vision and they work best working both roles in smaller organizations. Here are some characteristics of a great strategist.
1. They tend to be expressives and drivers
2. Architects
3. Communicator
4. Collaborator
5. Negotiator
6. Facilitator
7. Motivator
8. Enabler
9. Catalyst

Strategist can bring great value to any size organization through these key benefits.
1. They champion core values
2. They bring historical perspectives (what's worked)
3. They tend to have experience and instincts
4. They typically build a strong knowledge base (Tacit)
5. They can focus research and benchmarking (Explicit)
6. They often have great internal Insight
7. They often have execlent external (marketplace) perspective
8. They stay current (Information, strategies, date)
9. They have an awareness of current situations
10. They often bring high levels of professional expertise
11. They can integrate peer opinions into action

Throughout my career, my life/work experiences have developed the strategist in me. That is what I do best. I work well alone, can complement a great leader and rely on a great manager to help the team get expected results. I can catch or cast vision when required, plan, organize and then implement effectively to make the vision a reality.