Becoming a leader-manager: a matter of training and education

Abstract

Purpose

Responding to a call from the conference “Becoming a leader: A matter of education?”, this paper aims to raise awareness of the challenge for individuals of performing both leadership and management activities and draws attention to the need for a new approach to educating and training leader-managers.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on the existing literature and discussions from the abovementioned conference, the paper questions the current approaches which either merge the leadership and management functions or treat them as mutually exclusive roles and offers instead a dual approach that emphasizes the capacity of individuals to switch mindsets.

Findings

Managing and leading are distinct activities with different goals and means that need to co-exist. Individuals should be prepared to either manage or lead depending on the situation and to change their mindset accordingly. Education and training programs should be designed for this purpose.

Originality/value

The paper proposes a dual “leading-managing mix” and discusses the challenges of its implementation by individuals. The discussion of the implications for training and education will be of value to practitioners as well as educators and training specialists.

Citation

Nguyen, N. and Hansen, J.Ø. (2016), "Becoming a leader-manager: a matter of training and education", Development and Learning in Organizations, Vol. 30 No. 6, pp. 10-12. https://doi.org/10.1108/DLO-07-2016-0056