How to Make the Shift from Managing Tasks to Leading People

This week, let's dive into a topic that hits home for many professionals: the struggle to transition from being a manager operating on the limit of their energy and capability to a high-performance leader. We'll unpack the essence of leadership, moving beyond traditional management roles, and explore why many of us struggle to make this transition.

Management Versus Leadership

At its core, being a manager is about control and execution, ensuring tasks are completed, processes are followed, and daily operations run smoothly. Leadership, however, operates on a different level. It's about setting a vision, inspiring a team, and thinking strategically about the future. It's not just about being experts in what we do and how we do it, but also in why we do it and how it aligns with our bigger goals.

Imagine the difference between being the person who changes the wheels on an F1 car versus the person who runs the team.

The Delivery Cycle That Keeps You Stuck

Before we can talk about making the shift, it helps to name the trap most managers are already in. Call it the dElivery cycle. A challenge or problem arises, you marshall resources, and you get it done. But you don't have time to stop and think, because another thing, and another, and another come along. Using the PEARL model, all you are doing is Executing. You don't get any further around the model. It's intense and it seems endless, a game of whack-a-mole.

The result is a familiar feeling: "There just aren't enough hours in the day." When you are locked in that cycle, you are not leading. You are reacting. And if you are not stopping to reflect, you are also not learning from the very experiences that could make you a stronger leader.

When you do stop and take the time out, magical things can happen. Sometimes it can feel like you need to force yourself because, for people in the dElivery cycle, those pesky moles are going to keep coming.

When we looked at this pattern across cohorts, we found that many leaders needed more support to coach their teams outside of structured sessions, and they simply were not equipped for it. Quite simply, they too were stuck in delivery and struggling to shift their mindsets. Equally, if they were not taking time to reflect themselves, they struggled to support their team members to do it.

The Cognitive Load of Pretending

Dr. Laura Empson, in her book "Leading Professionals: Power, Politics, and Prima Donnas," notes that many people essentially have two jobs: the one they're hired to do and the one where they pretend to be more capable and confident than they actually are. This pretending can consume more than 50% of your cognitive energy, making you more risk-averse and less likely to try new things. We tend to focus more on avoiding failure than striving for success, which limits your ability to lead into the unknown.

Creating an environment where it's safe to admit what we don't know and seek help can eliminate this second job of pretending. If you are doing it, chances are your team is too. This shift allows us to focus on genuine growth and improvement, rather than just maintaining appearances.

Overwhelm and Overwork

A crucial aspect of moving into leadership is recognising the cognitive load managers already carry. You juggle multiple tasks and responsibilities, often leading to burnout and decreased performance. The expectations on managers keep growing as businesses thin out headcounts and strip away layers. Today's manager deals with more complexity and larger teams than ever before.

Many managers also face unreasonable pressures from leadership, often due to poor prioritisation and lack of support from above.

The "Missing Middle": Leaders Left in Limbo

Globally, organisations invest billions in developing their leaders, yet the quality of leadership often doesn't improve proportionally. Despite these investments, the number one reason people leave their jobs is still because of their manager. The gap between investment and outcome consistently appears as a priority concern in business performance, indicating a fundamental flaw in traditional leadership training methodologies. Most programmes actually teach management skills, not leadership.

In most companies, new managers start with Management 101, learning essential skills like delegation and prioritisation. At the other end of the spectrum, there's executive coaching for top-tier leaders. But what about the vast middle ground? This "missing middle" leaves many mid-level managers in a developmental void, with limited resources to bridge the gap between basic management and high-level leadership.

Without the necessary tools and frameworks, managers often learn through trial and error, which can be inefficient and demoralising for them and their teams. To build a strong leadership pipeline, continuous development programmes that support managers in their particular context at every stage are essential.

Leadership Training is Broken

Many leadership training programmes are generic and fail to address the specific challenges and contexts of each business. They often take an intense, short-term approach rather than the extended journey we know works. Leadership growth is not just about training. Training is one piece of the puzzle, but it needs to be underpinned by a deep understanding of its purpose and a framework that's simple to use. Not necessarily easy, but simple. These people already have full minds and full days.

In many organisations, this involves taking managers away from their teams for several days. They get bombarded with information about how to do X, Y, and Z. They return to work with great ideas and intentions, but reality quickly hits:

• A day full of meetings
• A backlog of emails
• Pressing team needs

The chance to reflect on and apply what they learned diminishes as they dive back into their daily tasks.

Building the Coaching Habit Into Leadership

One practical response to this pattern is equipping leaders with a coaching approach they can use in the flow of everyday work. Rather than waiting for a formal programme, leaders who develop a coaching mindset can shift conversations with their teams from task-focused to growth-focused in real time.

A structured approach such as the GROW model gives leaders a simple framework for those conversations. The key elements worth developing include:

• Coaching mindset and the shift from telling to asking
• The power of curiosity and well-placed questions
• Active listening, including what you are not hearing
• Strengths-based coaching, building on what people do well
• Understanding the coachee's mindset, including fear and trust
• Applying the GROW model in real situations and reviewing what happened

This matters because leaders who cannot coach their teams are limited to directing them. And directing people is management, not leadership.

Imagine Leadership Growth as a Military Wargame

Instead of merely delivering PowerPoint presentations on leadership principles, we should immerse managers in real-world challenges where they can practise new skills in a supportive environment. Like a military wargame, development should navigate complex situations with peers, learning to lead under pressure.

The after-action review is crucial. Here, managers can:

• Reflect on their experiences
• Receive continuous feedback
• Discuss strategies for improvement

This method allows for the integration of new skills in real-time, leading to more effective and lasting development. Running Connect and Reflect sessions is an integral part of our programmes. Just as soldiers emerge from wargames better prepared for combat, managers will become more resilient and capable leaders, ready to tackle today's dynamic business environment.

Leadership is a Team Sport

Another crucial aspect of making this shift is having people to bounce ideas off. During our Global Leadership Mastermind sessions, participants from multiple countries and industries shared that they often felt isolated in their challenges. This peer learning and support network is often missing in traditional leadership programmes.

Managers might look around and think everyone else has it all figured out. This isolation can be crippling, making it difficult to seek help or admit uncertainties.

A peer community provides a safe space to share struggles and solutions. It frees up mental energy by reducing the need to pretend and allows for authentic growth and learning.

The Reality of AI in Leadership Growth

With the rise of artificial intelligence, many organisations are turning to AI tools for support. However, most of these tools are little more than fancy e-learning platforms dressed up as AI. True AI-driven support should go beyond automated assessments and generic feedback. It should provide real-time, contextualised support, helping leaders navigate complex situations and make informed decisions in the moment.

Imagine an AI tool that acts as a personal leadership coach, offering tailored advice, reacting to your progress, and providing feedback or debriefing you on how things went. By integrating advanced AI tools that offer real intelligence and adaptability, organisations can transform how their managers develop.

Our "Aiden" platform is becoming integral to our programmes, providing real-time, contextualised coaching support that aligns with the ever-evolving demands of the business world. Our approach not only supports mid-level managers in their transition to leadership but also ensures a more dynamic, responsive process that keeps pace with what the business actually needs.

The Journey from Manager to Leader

The journey from manager to leader is complex and requires a multifaceted approach that addresses the unique challenges at every level. It means breaking out of the delivery cycle, creating space for reflection, building a coaching habit, and finding a peer community that makes the work feel less isolating. By rethinking how leaders grow, creating more supportive environments, and leveraging true AI capabilities, we can help managers transition effectively and achieve the recognition, rewards, and results they deserve.

If this sounds like your week

Your managers are not the problem. They are where the problem is stuck.

When your last leadership spend was signed off, did anyone go back to those managers' bosses and ask what changed? That question is the JBL Outcome Standard, and it is how I work.

• Find the friction. A short diagnostic that shows which decisions are stalling, and at what level.
• Am I the bottleneck? Ten questions on where your week is actually going.
• How I work with GMs. Six weeks, one hour a week, up to twelve of your managers, scored by their own bosses.
• Beat Burnout, Boost Performance. The book.
• The High Performance Leader podcast.

Managers I work with reclaim around four hours a week, and their bosses score the change 8.75 out of 10. Would it be a crazy idea to find out how we did this? Book a scoping call.