What is an Executive?
How executives differ from leaders and managers
We refer to executives, managers and leaders as if these labels were interchangeable. We assume that all good executives must be leaders. This article offers one way of bringing some order to this chaos.
To be strategic, executives need to invest more than just their organization’s resources wisely. They also need to deploy their personal talents to best effect. They cannot do so if their roles are so nebulous that they are unable to channel their energy productively.
The position taken here is that executives are managers by definition because both roles entail responsibilities for delivering results. But they may or may not also be leaders. Showing leadership entails behaving in a certain way. Executives who do not show leadership may not be comfortable behaving in this way, their organizations may not need much leadership or the organization may get the leadership it needs elsewhere.
The Three Functions of an Executive
Executives can contribute to organizational productivity in any one of three broad ways: by leading, managing or doing.
Leading
Showing leadership means promoting new directions, either new products (new whats) or new processes (better or new hows.) Hence, there are two leadership roles:
- Content leader - promotes new Whats.
- Process leader - promotes new or improved Hows.
Managing
Managing means getting things done effectively. Management is partly a decision making, investing function and partly a facilitative one. On the decision making side, managers make investment decisions, not only with money but also people and other resources at their disposal. There are four sub-functions:
- Investor - allocates and monitors resources to ensure a fair return. This includes driving execution and motivating high performance.
- Catalyst - facilitates decision making, acts as a broker, brings right people together, resolve conflict, foster cross functional working.
- Coach – actively develops staff, promotes learning, acts as a mentor, asks engaging questions to enhance confidence in others.
- Steward - maintains consistent culture and values, acts as a figurehead, manages anxiety, fosters best place to work.
Doing
Of course, executives are supposed to work through people, but many don’t see this as real work. They like to focus on the content of the business, making decisions rather than facilitating decision making in others. These executives are doers.
- Architect - builds or shapes organizational capability, initiates judicious partnerships or acquisitions.
- Promoter - represents or sells the organization to external stakeholders, negotiates deals with major customers.
- Expert – acts as expert in a core competence, works as an internal consultant, applies technical expertise.
Conclusion
There are no hard and fast rules for carving up the executive role. The main virtue of this proposal is that it makes clear the fact that an executive could be quite successful without being a leader, that is by being a Manager or Doer. Many businesses that compete on the basis of efficiency, consistent quality and customer service need good management to prosper. It is only those that need to change a great deal or frequently where leadership is required.
