Leadership vs Management: Why You Need Both

You've probably heard "leadership versus management" debates many times, but Kristen and Mike break it down in a way that actually makes sense. This isn't about which one is better - spoiler alert: you need both. Instead, they explore how these distinct skill sets work together and why understanding the difference can transform your career. From Confucius to Navy SEALs, they share practical insights on when to lead people versus manage systems, common myths that trip up even experienced professionals, and why the best leaders toggle between both modes throughout their day. If you've ever wondered whether you're managing when you should be leading (or vice versa), this episode will give you the clarity to know which hat to wear when.

Highlights:

• The Core Distinction: Leadership = vision and inspiration ("why" and "what"). Management = operations and execution ("how")
• Kotter's Framework: Leadership establishes direction, aligns people, motivates. Management plans/budgets, organizes/staffs, controls/problem-solves
• Why Both Matter: Successful leaders toggle between both modes throughout their day
• Leadership can be learned through study and practice - you're not born with it
• Common Myths Debunked: Leadership isn't higher status than management, you can lead from any role, both require ongoing development
• The Coaching Approach: Keeps you focused on vision and mentorship while avoiding micromanagement
• Managing Systems, Leading People: Manage processes, lead and inspire the people within them
• Continuous Growth: Leadership development is lifelong, requiring constant learning and self-reflection

Links & Resources Mentioned:

• Start With Why by Simon Sinek
• Good to Great by Jim Collins
• Turn the Ship Around by Captain L. David Marquet
• The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier
• Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink
• Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara

Podcast Website: www.loveandleadershippod.com
Instagram: @loveleaderpod

Follow us on LinkedIn!
Kristen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristenbsharkey/
Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-s-364970111/

Learn more about Kristen's leadership coaching and facilitation services: http://www.emboldify.com

Transcript

Kristen: Welcome to Love and Leadership, the podcast that helps you lead with both your head and your heart, plus a bit of humor. I'm Kristen Brun Sharkey, a leadership coach and facilitator.

Mike: And I'm Mike Sharkey, a senior living and hospitality executive. We're a couple of leadership nerds who also happen to be a couple.

Kristen: Join us each week as we share our unfiltered opinions, break down influential books, and interview inspiring guests.

Mike: Whether you're a seasoned executive or a rising star, we're here to help you level up your leadership game and amplify your impact.

Kristen: \ Hello and welcome back to Love and Leadership. I'm Kristen. And

Mike: I'm Mike.

Kristen: And we will see if we get any cat visits today. If we do, it will be,a matter of harassment, not curiosity.

Mike: Bossy. bossy. They're both bossy. One is vocally bossy. The other is like she wants to like bowl your food out of you.

She'll just get real close.

Kristen: Yes.

Mike: She's like, I'm so cute. It doesn't matter. You'll give me your food.

Kristen: That

Mike: is, and we often do. And then she doesn't really want it. She likes like five kinds of human food. It's not a lot. She likes red lentils. Beezus will have red lentils.

Kristen: Which is weird,

Mike: I don't know. It's protein.

Kristen: dunno. Well, and yogurt, she's

Mike: Well, yogurt, she's obsessed.

Kristen: I like, she'll be dead asleep in another room and I open up a cup of yogurt and she's like, Hmm,

Mike: It's the fermentation or the, the culture rather. It's like, it's dead. It's like some kind of, like it's a bacteria. So I think it, it smells similar to like a dead animal. Sorry. It's gross.

Kristen: It's gross. Cats are gross.

Mike: Gross.

Kristen: They're, yeah, but. We love them. Well welcome back everybody. We are gonna do a topic today that is really a classic, but I think it's also important for, everyone to really understand 'cause there's been like different viewpoints on it throughout the years. And we are gonna be talking about leadership versus management. 

Mike: Dun, dun, dun. 

Kristen: And like what the difference 

Mike: This is a classic

Kristen: It's classic,

Mike: It's super important to know the difference.

Kristen: Yep.

Mike: You kind of need both. I think

Kristen: That's my conclusion. Yeah. Is that like for most leaders, your job is gonna have components of both, but

Mike: But you can get other people to do the management part.

Kristen: Yes.

Mike: Yes. You know, what was it, that book that was talking about, like

Kristen: You still have to manage them.

Mike: Well, you have to lead them. Yeah. And you have to find somebody. I can't remember, was it was the one that was talking about Martin Luther King, where he like had a dream, not a plan.

What book was that? Was that.

What's that?

Was it Start With Why

I maybe? Yes.

Kristen: yes. Okay.

Mike: Okay. And he was talking about all great, like.thought leaders like Steve Jobs had somebody who was a technical genius. Yeah. You know, they, they have somebody that can do the management part of it, the technical part of it.

The procedural part of it, you know.

Kristen: Yep. 

Mike: The less you can probably stay out of that, the better in some 

Kristen: You have like the idea person and the operations person. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that's definitely one viewpoint, but I think for the majority of people, you need both. 

Mike: Sure. okay.

Kristen: I'm gonna talk more about that.

But yeah. What does it mean for you when you think about, like, your background and stuff? What is the difference?

Mike: Well, I'd probably gonna parrot what you have written here. I mean, to some degree, like what is leadership? It's my favorite thing is boundaries, right?

It's, but boundaries is a type of vision, you know? Leadership is a vision, an idea. You're bringing people along with you toward some bigger goal or something new, or something,difficult to achieve, or, what is that saying talent hits a target no one else can hit, but genius hits a target no one else can see. So something like that. it's, and Good to Great. He talks about five levels of leadership, and level four is where you can, organize people toward a, some big goal. And I think that's the level that you have to reach to really call yourself a leader.

Level three is more like a manager, and level five is some sort of like person who's had a very broad background to make them, I don't wanna say spiritually enlightened, but farther along that type of path of enlightenment, if you will, or self discovery that makes them inspiring in a special way.

Right? But you gotta at least reach like level four where you can,organize people and galvanize people toward a goal. 

Kristen: Yeah. for 

Mike: Yeah. Management is. You know what kind of, what you say the process planning, organization, leading, and then if you're bad at it, it's controlling. You know, that's a low form of management, which we see a lot.

And I was thinking about that today actually. People who, who manage for compliance and control. It's really sad and uninspired and,It's just, it's, it really, it bums me out and I dunno else to say. It's very sad to see because it's such a waste of the potential of humanity to lead to, to manage and lead that way.

It's, yeah, I'm, I feel sorry for you and angry that you exist in this way.

And you, it's not like you can't learn and do better. Like maybe 50 years ago you couldn't, But now we have the internet, now we have the Love and Leadership podcast. there's so many podcasts. Jocko's podcast, Simon Sinek.

Does he have a podcast? I don't know, but he is got a ton of, yeah, he is got a ton of books. Yeah. If you're gonna be a leader. You either, you should, you have to study. Are you kidding me? Like how are you not studying like Jocko, sorry. to bring it back to him

Kristen: Every episode,

Mike: Uh, uh, you know, extreme ownership, how US Navy seal leader and he's, he looks and acts like a prototypical leader.

He's big dude, big voice, strong, but he spends so much time reading.

Yeah,

So much time studying history, so much time studying the treatises of just, of war, of everything. You cannot like that man reads so much, right? He's always trying to grow his capacity and grow his leadership. Managers aren't doing that.

Managers are like, you're just trying to get the job done through the day. But, leaders want to expand their own, understanding of the topic You know their wisdom. Right? And if you are in a position of any type of leadership and you're not spending your time at least some of your time studying, woe is you.

And woe are the, woe is the, for the people that work for you. Yeah. Because you are not honoring your obligation to them. When you are in a leadership position, it is not you that has, the only reason you have power is to serve other people, to help other people.You owe them a good result.

More than they owe. it is such a heavier burden to be a leader and owe your people like vision and leadership and kindness and support. That's your obligation. And if you're not up to it, put down your position and give it to someone who does deserve it. 

History is replete with leaders who put down a position because they, they're not up to the job or they feel they're not up to the job.

That's not what we do now, right? People want, probably always people, there are people who want the power.

Kristen: Arya's in 

Mike: your suitcase. 

Well, she's not going, okay. 

Kristen: Okay.

She, 

Mike: She, it's very aggressive.

Kristen: She's, yeah, it's hers now.

Mike: So leadership and management, I don't know. it's a difference of responsibility

Kristen: And I agree, like, it is your job as I think a leader or a manager to read, to be like constantly growing and learning and adding.

Mike: And you can do that whenever format is works for you. Yeah, not everybody needs to read 300. I get that. Yeah. But podcasts are a good option. You know, our podcast is just, I'm not trying to, anyone listening to this is already, listen, I'm not advertising here, but not everybody wants to read a 10 hour audio, book, but you can listen to 45 minutes.

Yeah. Every now and then and grow, it doesn't take,

you don't need a college degree in it. You know?

Kristen: No, I mean, I had a, I have a client who is,now both the cats are exploring Mike's suitcase. Oh, wow, okay. that's. Not distracting. So

Mike: They're so small and yet so big.

Kristen: Yes, big

Mike: big energy.

Kristen: But yeah, no. So I had a client who has, like me, has ADHD, but he has a really hard time reading things, but like wants to learn more. And we actually,if it was a book I recommended that we had a podcast episode on, he would listen to the podcast episode and then do like a lighter read of

Mike: the

Kristen: book Sure. But to like cement some stuff. So I mean, you can figure out what works for you.

Mike: Yeah. yeah,

There's a lot out there, a lot of different ways you can progress. Even if you're just in a position and you introspect yourself enough, you'll get there. Yeah. I don't know 

Kristen: For sure.

Mike: I don't get it like. I'm obviously a geek and a nerd about this topic, but

It's the way of like self cultivation. That's in the Da Xue from the son of heaven all the way down to the common person.The only way, the one way is to take cultivating yourself as the root. It doesn't matter whether you're the king or a farmer.

The way is the same.

Kristen: Hmm. I like 

Mike: Yeah.

Kristen: Something mike has been reciting to our

Mike: unborn 

Kristen: Unborn child.

Mike: I don't know, man. You know,I mean, Confucius spent like his whole life trying to get into government.

Not because he wanted power, but because he knew he would do a good job and would bring harmony to the people and bring prosperity to the people and bring peace to the people. And he knew he could do that. ' cause he knew what came first and what came next.

And the Da Xue is only a page long.There's a lot of religions with giant books, right?

Like giant books and so much of almost really all of what Confucious taught can be learned in a page. 

Kristen: I feel like I need to read an actual translation of it. 'cause I only hear you recited

Mike: You, the problem is you won't get a good 

Kristen: Yeah. Okay. 

Mike: And I'm not, I can't, I'm not confident enough. It's so profound and every word in Chinese can have 10 different meanings depending on the con. So like the best translations are probably only 70% correct. So even like, I don't, there's no way I would feel confident to teach it to someone. But,

Kristen: Fair.

Mike: I'm sorry.

On that note,

Kristen: Bringing it back to leadership versus management. So I have a couple of definitions that Mike referenced earlier. These are by no means the end all of definitions. There's so many out there, but just as like a starting point. So leadership is a set of mindsets and behaviors that aligns people in a collective direction, enables them to work together and accomplish shared goals and helps them adjust to changing environments.

Whereas management is a process of planning, organizing, leading, and potentially if you're not doing it in the best way, controlling people in the organization to effectively use resources to meet organizational goals.

Mike: Yeah. If you're a good leader, you shouldn't need to control people.

Kristen: Yeah. Yep. Agreed. And breaking this down a little more specifically of a couple of different ways to look at this, but, like leadership versus management. So the focus, so leadership, like big picture vision versus day to day operations, Future goals versus task execution. Why and what versus how. 

Mike: Yeah,

Kristen: Like people versus systems and structure, these are, like the difference in focus for leadership versus management.

Responsibility for leadership of setting the course and direction for versus for management, executing and implementing the plans to get there, like inspiring and guiding teams versus organizing and overseeing work. And then driving innovation and growth versus like maintaining stability and processes.

So like from this, you think about like change and innovation, like leadership is more like foster creativity and encourage new ideas versus like prioritizing efficiency and streamlining operations. For leadership, it's about taking risks for progress. And management is more about minimizing risks for consistency and stability.

And from when it comes to like managing people, like leadership is inspire and motivate, like motivation is heavily associated, with the leadership side of this versus coordination and organization on the management side.

Mike: Mm-hmm.

Kristen: Like monitoring motivation versus monitoring performance and igniting passion versus providing structure. And time-wise, like usually a leadership, you're more thinking about long-term strategy and management is more about like aligning short-term goals with long-term objectives and actually executing on them. And then results create transformation versus prioritize efficiency.

So that's just kind of a,

Mike: Yeah, that's

Kristen: great. Aggregation. Yeah.

Mike: That, that tracks, Leadership is vision and inspiration and management is ops

Kristen: Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah.You still need the motivation piece in order for people to be motivated and the vision piece.

Mike: Here's the thing,I don't know that. Maybe this is where I,I lack some things, but I did like in Good to Great where they talk about the main thing. You don't really have to motivate people. You find great people and then you don't demotivate them.

You don't have to motivate me. You just have to point me in the right direction and I'm gonna go. Right.

Kristen: I mean, yes and no. I think, I mean our motivation episode, I think gets into this more. I think that's like a reference to I. Like the two factor hygiene,theory where you're talking about you have like hygiene factors that demotivate and then you have positive motivators and I think they do matter,

Mike: Well, I think, sure. I'm not disagreeing, but like positive motivators who are like, what are you doing? like I work in an industry where we take care of people and take care of seniors. You're attracted to that because you don't just wind up there. There's something in you that, like caring for others is in you. I, I don't have to,

It's like a value, and that's a values alignment. And then it's just like, create the environment that people can 

Kristen: Mm-hmm. 

Mike: I don't get up every morning and give some motivational speech. Like I'm a, like I'm a coach at the World Series or something, you know?

I don't think you need that. Like Michael Jordan didn't need anybody to motive, I mean, he did that for other people. Right. But,

Kristen: Well, a lot of it's also like the work itself that you're

Mike: Sure.

Kristen: Yeah, for sure. And also like being in a position where you're able to keep growing, like things like that. Yeah. Matter. But yes, if you create the right conditions for people, which is easier to said than done, I think.

Then it's more about just don't demotivate them.

I 

Mike: don't think it's that hard. I gotta be honest. 

Kristen: I wish there was more of it. 'Cause that seems to be a lot of what the root dissatisfaction a lot of people have.

Mike: Well, because the people in positions of power, they're, they don't have a pure intention, and then they don't grow their capacity.I'm, I was talking todirector of sales from Tucson. She's, she knows me differently than I am now. Like she knows me as very sarcastic, but, and that was only like five years ago, but I've kind of worked that out of mymy repertoire, the more I like looked at sarcasm and what it really is, and the whole like sarcas to red flesh, I was like, that's not the vibe I want to be putting out there.

Humor is good. I like that. People think I'm, funny and I keep things light, but like I don't, I'm not that person anymore. You have to keep growing. Pablo Casals at the great cellist at 85, I think he was like 85, and he was still practicing four hours a day. And somebody's like, why are you're 85.

Why are you still practicing four hours a day? And he said, I think I'm finally starting to make some progress. 

Kristen: That's cool. 

Mike: It's pretty cool, right?

Kristen: Yeah. Yeah. 

Mike: I get what you're saying. I just, 

Kristen: Yeah. Maybe we should be challenging companies to be like, this is not that hard.

Mike: It's not that hard.

Kristen: be doing more of

Mike: You should be doing more of this. Treat people decently, point them in the right direction. Give them good work to do. Pay them well, take care of them. Be honest with them. Tell them the truth. Yeah. and explain the why of things as deeply and as you possibly canand I don't know.

Kristen: Well, it requires looking past the bottom line, right? And all this stuff does positively impact company financials. Absolutely.

Mike: It's part of

Kristen: It takes some, but you have to have the the perspective to understand like that this stuff is worth investing in and this is the stuff that's ultimately going to lead to improving your bottom line.

Mike: And it's a kind of mentorship too. Like I want everybody to grow to the point that they can grow to and that they want to grow too. I had a good conversation during my current chef's review and he was like me. He was like a line cook somewhere and not happy. And he was like, I can't, I'm wor I, he thought, and he is worth more than that, And he had to figure out how to make that happen for himself. And he did,and he's a chef and he is got a woodworking business and he's very successful, right?

And he's reached a very high level of chefiness. But that took work and that's the thing nobody can do for you. The horse. They can bring a horse to water, that's, this podcast is this. We're bringing, trying humbly to bring, and it's not, I don't, I didn't write a book.

All I'm doing is reading other people's great works and trying to aggregate their ideas and practice them for myself.I am nothing. I am. All I am is an imitator and I'm a good imitator. And if you imitate enough people long enough, you will develop. I did it as a musician too. Like I imit, like I'd hear Tom Freer play scenario.

Him I, and be like, I can do that. Rough this, this, four stroke, rough this way. And I see how he's holding his sticks. And then I watch my teacher, Mr. Brown, and how he did stuff. And I, and I aggregate all of that until I came up with my own thing. But I didn't invent anything. 



Kristen: Yeah, that's fair. You do like develop your own style, that is a mix of all of these things, right?

Mike: But you have parents, right? Like you're a mix of your parents and your environment and your experiences and your own curiosity. 

Kristen: Yeah,

Mike: And I want, I want people to challenge themselves and grow and go on to whatever they want to do, And I think if an organism, like back to Unreasonable Hospitality, he invested in everybody to the point where he knew people could leave because they were, became so much more than they started. And he's like, I don't care. Good for them. And. Like most of them didn't leave and the ones that did good for them, and we will get somebody else and we'll grow.

He invested in 22 year olds giving them control of the beverage program. at a,

Kristen: right.

Mike: At a three Michelin star, right? Put a 22-year-old in charge of the coffee program. That dude can go on to do it. Hopefully he owns a coffee company at this point, or like he's making espresso.

I don't know, like, I love to see people succeed. Yeah. I'm sorry. I don't think it's that hard.I think it's hard to get to the emotional and spiritual place where it's not hard, but the actual doing it is actually pretty easy. 

You Just go along with the nature. care for others. Grow others. Support others,

Kristen: because I don't think it's something that for most people comes early in your career,

Mike: It did not. No, it did not come to me naturally. I had to study and break things to make that happen.

Kristen: I was definitely a manager long before I was a leader

Mike: For sure. Yeah,

Kristen: Absolutely. I was great at managing all the processes and stuff, but when it comes to actually like setting a vision and motivating people, that was a whole different thing.

Mike: Yeah. I wasn't good at the, I was good at the op, the like the systems and things like that, but I didn't know how to control people. I wasn't good at getting a result out of them. 

Kristen: Yeah.

And I always loved like the one-on-one side of management. But yeah, the bigger aligning people around a common goal, it takes, it's a different skill set.

These are two different skill sets.

Mike: They're different skill sets. Oh, they're different skill. Skill sets. Yeah. And both can be learned. Both can be learned. Leadership, again,

Kristen: We'll cover that in myths section.

Mike: Raison d'etre this podcast is you can learn leadership even if you start from scratch.

Kristen: Yep. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah.So yeah, the one other thing I wanted to share is a framework from John Paul Kotter, who is very smart.

I think we'll do his book on Leading Change.

Mike: change

Kristen: soon. 'cause I really wanna do that one. Um

Mike: It's all change management

Kristen: Oh yeah. Yeah. He has, he's like well known for this particular process for change management. But he also has a framework on specific functions of management and leadership. So he defines it as leadership.

It produces change and movement. Versus management produces order and consistency. And you do need both of those things for an organization to be successful. And there's kinda like three core functions of each of these. So for leadership, there's Establishing Direction, so creating a vision, clarifying the big picture, setting strategies.

Whereas for management, one of the functions is Planning and Budgeting. So establishing agendas, setting timetables, allocating resources, right? So these are both like, like pretty high level things, but they have a different focus to them. And then, for leadership, Aligning People, so communicating goals, seeking commitment, building teams and coalitions.

Mike: That's a good

Kristen: Coalition building is a thing I love to talk about. Actually. We'll do, we'll do that relatively soon, but, but yeah, so aligning people and then like on the management side, it's Organizing and Staffing, so providing structure, making job placements and establishing roles and procedures.

That's much more on the management side. And then finally the third core functions for leadership, Motivating and Inspiring. So inspire and energize, empower subordinates, and satisfy unmet needs. I really like that one act. Oh, that way of looking at it actually satisfying,

Mike: I like that better than empower subordinate? Subordinate, insubordination. I don't know. Fair. Like semi E and women's 

I think this was like in the, done in the nineties. A few things have changed, but, and then for management Controlling and Problem Solving. And controlling, I think that this. This context is not necessarily what we mean about it when we talk about it negatively, but, he defines this as Well, you have to control it. It's likeharness the horse, 

Kristen: Yeah. 

Mike: The horse. Like you're trying to guide a complex energy energetic system toward. A result.

You gotta guide that a little bit.

You have to control, you have to keep it from going off the tracks,It's the right amount of control, not force. 

Kristen: Yeah. 

Mike: The right energy at the right time. It's like a goalie, you just push things back into the to the, the ring. Oh wait, they can't see us. I'm talk, I talk with my hands. I'm sorry.

Kristen: There's lots of gesturing

Mike: A lot of gesturing, gesticulation Only. Only I was

Kristen: able to enjoy. Yeah.

But yeah, so controlling and problem solving.

He, his examples are developing incentives, generating creative solutions, and taking corrective actions.

Mike: Some of this is manipulative.

Kristen: Well, uh, you like to say to me, leadership is to some degree manipulation. Right?

Mike: I don't know. Jocko talks about that. I think it's a question of your intention, right?

Kristen: Yeah. Yes. But I mean, but these are all tactics used too.

Mike: I think it comes down to knowing your intention, knowing your heart. 

Kristen: And if you're not constantly checking on that, you are gonna get in trouble.

Yeah. Yep. So taking this a little bit higher level, some kind of common misconceptions, at least in my opinion. So one is like leadership is a higher status, more evolved than management. And I don't think that, I don't think that's the right way to look at it because they're both really essential skill sets. Most people start as managers and they start with that skill set and then develop leadership skills. But they're both necessary

Mike: I think it is more evolved.

Kristen: I don't think it's a higher status.

Yeah. Okay. I could see that argument.

Mike: It's a more profound skillset.

Kristen: I do think it's a, for most people it's a harder skillset to develop, a more complex

Mike: It's way more complex because it's, you're really taking into like empathy and humanity and vision and purpose.

Not that you don't have that in management. Management is more of like a technical thing.

Kristen: Mm-hmm.

Mike: I think,

Kristen: But this is more, this is less about what it takes to develop them and more about you need both.

Mike: Of course. You need both.

Kristen: Yeah. It's not like you, you develop management skills and then you develop leadership skills, and then you don't need your management skills anymore.

Mike: No. You, they're both absolutely critical skills. Yeah, absolutely critical skills.

Kristen: So number two, leaders are born, managers are made, and thumbs down.

Mike: Thumbs down.

Kristen: Yeah. If you've listen to any of our podcasts, you probably know our feelings on this one. But, yeah. I think people often like associate, especially when compared to management, people associate leadership with like charisma.

I. and 

Mike: yeah.

Kristen: See this like this innate gene. And nope, it's a practiced skillset as is management skills.

Mike: as we've studied that charisma that. Born leadership is actually can work against you in the long run. Yeah, it's a lot of documentation people with that, that gene, as you will, they're good for their organizations only so long as they are in charge.

And it doesn't last past them. 

Kristen: Yeah. Myth number three, you can't be both at once.

Mike: These are good.

Kristen: Most leaders are like constantly like toggling between these as like different modes, right.

Mike: Yeah. Well, I think, you as a leader, you probably, it's hard because you want to get in there and tinker, but the more you can stay out of the technical side, the better you're gonna, it's so hard.

'Cause nobody's as good as you at the technical, or a lot of people get to leadership positions by being really good on the technical side. And then it can be hard to it can be hard to let go or let other people do it, or, take the step from management to leadership.

Kristen: Yeah.

Mike: I'm trying to remember. I think there's a really good book called Turn the Ship, turn the Boat Around. Turn the, I think it's Turn the Boat Around. It's another submarine commander.

Kristen: Was like, sounds like it.

Mike: Yeah. No, it is. And but,I think he gets command of a boat that he doesn't know the technical, like he, he grew up on different boats and all, and somehow he gets command of a boat that he's not familiar with all the technical.

And so he can't rely on that anymore to, to be the smartest person in the room. And that's like a way you can establish yourself as the guy in charge to know more than everybody else. Yeah, sure. That's one way. But he has to reinvent himself. 

Kristen: Mm-hmm

Mike: Which he does very It's a great book. I think it's turned the ship around. I'm gonna get, my father is gonna absolutely text me and tell me I've, I'm

submarines again. They're boats. I think it's a boat. It has to be a boat because you have the chief of the boat, you have the cob, the chief of the boat. So it's a boat.

But I'm pretty sure it's turned the ship around. I'm gonna look it up. Okay. Fantastic book. It is Turn the Ship Around.

Kristen: the ship around. Yes, that is the name.

Mike: But I think Submarines are boats. Great book.

Great book.

I haven't read that one in a long time. He really empowers people.

He does not allow people to centralize command around him. He, his whole thing is like.He teaches people the phrase I intend to, and he's just like, okay. He makes them like understand the why of their job you know that the parameters in which they can do them and the points of danger, and.

That's a good book.

Kristen: no.

Well, and then if he falls off the boat, that can still can keep

Mike: They keep operating. Yeah. True story of turning followers into leaders. Yeah, he, it's good. It's the leader model. Everybody's a leader. There's no followers.

Nice. Yeah.

Kristen: Well, and then the last myth I had on here is management is for early career roles leadership is for the C-suite.And it's more nuance than this. I think like usually you develop management skills first, but you can. You can lead from any role. I think I actually should have had like another one in here, which is that you have to be a manager to be a leader, which is also not true.

Mike: It's not true. It can be annoying though, because leaders who don't understand the technical realities of what they're asking people, it's both though.

Like if a leader always stops to like consider every technical thing, he'll never, you'll never push the boundaries.

Kristen: Yeah. You have to be able to get out of that mode and Yeah.

Yeah. For sure.

Mike: But it's helpful to know both, for sure.

Mm-hmm.And you can lead, yeah, you can lead from any role, from any level of seniority. We should do that book. We haven't done a military book in a while.

Kristen: Oh. We can put it in the

Mike: Put it in the queue. Put it in the queue. it in the queue. I'll do the notes. 

Kristen: Okay. Yeah.

right. We can add that in the

Mike: not a, it, again, it's not a, it's almost a companion to, It's Your Ship.

Kristen: It's not, there's not a lot of fighting. it's more inspirational than it is like a war story kind of a thing. 



Kristen: So that, that's most of our at least what we had in notes here. I mean, I think that some of the takeaways I noted, so leadership and management are both valuable, distinct skill sets. Develop an awareness of which hat you're wearing at a given time,

Mike: Yeah. That's 

Kristen: So you know, and which one is actually best for the situation you're in.

I like that the most impactful leaders manage systems while leading people. 

Mike: Smart,

Kristen: It's gets away from the controlling, right? Like lead people manage systems or control systems. And both management and leadership, like we talked about the differences here, but both of them really require communication, accountability, emotional intelligence, and decision making. 

Mike: This is why I like The Coaching Habit.

Kristen: Mm-hmm.

Mike: As, as a leadership style.

Because it keeps you, it, it keeps you focused on mentorship, vision, alignment, and keeps you out of the technical side. I gotta reread those books. I feel like I'm not doing that lately.

Kristen: That is one. I mean, it's a great one to go back to and

Mike: So good. Because

Kristen: It's, yeah, I love that book.

Mike: I feel like when you start in the STARS model, not all the stars model, like sometimes if it's a turnaround or a realignment, you have to go in with a little bit morecontrol.I don't think control is about, I think you have to know how much control, it's like how much salt to put in the recipe.

But once things are rolling, then you can really go back to the coaching 

Kristen: Yeah. Coaching is, yeah, how you empower others and also empower yourself by giving yourself more space.

Mike: Yeah. I have to have that space to,

Kristen: yeah.

To do the high level stuff, right? Yeah.

Mike: Yeah. If you're, because if you're not, it's not a status thing.

But if you are not doing it, who's doing it? No one's doing it.

Kristen: And this is something, I mean, I work with leaders across variety of levels and companies and industries. And this is really, really common.

Where I people will spend too much time in the management side because that's what, what got you here won't get you there, right? Like that's what got them to the level where they're at and was the ability to hustle through it all and execute really effectively. But then you reach a point where you have to be able to do that through teams, and you have to be able to take that higher level. So yeah, having a coaching leadership style I think is a path towards that. It's not the only path, but I, it's a really, it's a really solid path for, I think most leaders.

Mike: It's like a style of martial art, It's kind of like boxing for sure. Like it's enough, you'll win most fights with just knowing boxing, Do you need other, sure. You want to learn Muay Thai, like our unborn child, uh, clearly knows Muay Thai.

Kristen: He knows. He knows Muay Thai.

Mike: You wanna know wrestling? Sure. But you can do a pretty deep dive on just boxing and that will most likely be enough for 95% of your situations. Not everything you know, but like how much do you want to specialize in different, so I think coaching habit, that style is, it's gonna get you most where you want to go most of the

time. Mm-hmmNot all the time for sure. You're right.

But I don't know.

Kristen: A lot

Mike: I'm, it's, it's, I'm still in love with it. I'm still trying to, make that my,bread and butter.

Kristen: Well, and like with any of the stuff, like these are skills you develop over time and it's not linear. Right.You get away from it and then you come back

Mike: I gotta go back to it. Going back

And then it becomes more and more muscle. Muscle memory the more you do that. But it's not necessarily like skill development is not usually linear linear. Okay.

Kristen: Agreed. This is a great topic,Yeah. It's a fun one. We hadn't done it yet 'cause it's it seems. Very, it's like

basic in some ways, but it's really not,

Mike: not,

Kristen: not. It's very complex and it's something that had a big impact on my career personally, like really understanding this.

Even I would hear people say it early in my career, like leadership versus management, but I, it, I didn't really understand it until I was further in and it made a big 

Mike: Leadership is actually more basic and management is more complex.

Kristen: Yeah. I think that is, yeah, you can look at it from that

Mike: That's in some way what makes it harder.

You have to have one word that works to, form a coalition and a vision rather than understanding the whole technical side of, programming a supercomputer.

That's way more complex. But the simple is harder sometimes. , 

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Cool. 

Kristen: Awesome. 

Mike: I love it.

I love it. This is the whole, this is the whole thing right there. This is the whole chestnut or whatever, likeyou should invest in, in learning these things and studying them or getting better at them.

I'm not saying I'm good at them, but man, it's just. So it's like endless.

Kristen: It's a lifelong process. 

Mike: process. Yeah. 

Kristen: And definitely applies. A lot of this stuff applies outside of work too, so.

Mike: For sure.

Kristen: And if you're listening to this podcast, you, are at least a little bit invested in developing your yourself as a leader. So welcome.

Mike: Yeah, I know

Kristen: Out with you every week.

Mike: preach. Yeah. We're preaching to the Mormon Tabernacle choir. Like they're already singing in church. But I just, I don't get it and I, it bums me out to see people in positions of power who don't display leadership and aren't interested in improving their leadership.

Kristen: Mm-hmm.

Mike: Not necessarily just talking about the, so many presidents I've seen, like they can't admit they've made a mistake.Like that's a form of weakness to them, and it's like the absolute, it's absolutely the opposite is true. Admitting you made a mistake is the hard part.

Learning from, it's the hard part, but it's what makes you qualify to Yeah be in a position of, to be able to say I messed up and here's what I'm gonna do to try and make sure that doesn't happen again. That's courage.

Kristen: Yep. That is requires so much

Mike: So much courage.

Kristen: Oh,

Mike: Oh yeah. Okay. Awesome.

Awesome. Thanks, Kristen.

Kristen: Thanks, Mike. Thanks, Kristen. Sharing your, your thoughts. Oh wait, that's what podcasting is. Yeah. All right. Well,

Mike: I'm still learning all this, It's very profound. It's very hard to have confidence in yourself, that you're, the vision you are trying to cast is a good one and purposeful, a good pur, like you should worry about, I feel like you should worry about that.

You should be checking like, what are my intentions? What are my motivations? Yeah. And if you're not, then you might, there might be something wrong with you. We.

Kristen: We should do an episode specifically on like vision.

Mike: Yeah.

Kristen: Setting too. 'cause there's different traps to fall into. Yeah, it's easy to second guess your vision, but, you also don't wanna change it too much or you lose all its effectiveness and all that kind of stuff. So, um, yeah, we can do topic on that for sure. Oh, all right.

Well, we're gonna go ahead and wrap here.

Mike: So we can watch The Last of Us.

Kristen: You guys keep getting an update on what TV we're watching at the end of recording, since we've been doing a lot of nighttime recordings lately.Yeah. So thank you guys for listening. As always, 

Thank 

Mike: you for tuning in

Kristen: And we'll see you next time.

Mike: We will. 

The Love and Leadership Podcast is produced and co-hosted by me, Kristen Brun Sharkey and co-hosted by Mike Sharkey. Please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. We can't stress enough just how much these reviews help. You can follow us on LinkedIn under Kristen Brun Sharkey and Michael Sharkey, and on Instagram as loveleaderpod.

Kristen: You can also find more information on our website, loveandleadershippod.com. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll see you again next week.