Inside CoPress

While sorting through Evernote a couple of days back, I came across notes from a presentation by Steve Smith (of the Spokesman Review) I attended back in October. The subject was “Management vs. Leadership” in the newsroom during times of turmoil, and I thought the list of keywords we generated for each was worth sharing again. What follows are some of those notes.

Management is:

• patience
• organization
• supervisor
• budgeting
• delegating
• experience
• responsibility
• experience (skill sets)

whereas bad management is:

• arbitrary
• disorganized
• panic frequently
• vindictive
• indifferent
• incompetent

Leadership, on the other hand, is both related and unrelated to management. Leadership is more of a behavior style, and includes:

• not being afraid of smart people
• vision
• goals
• inspiring
• enthusiasm
• motivator
• standards
• ethical
• charismatic 
• supportive
• team builder
• Does it all himself
• transcends the organization
• able to act, decisive
• assertive

A title is given in management, but not in leadership. Leadership isn’t defined by the position, it’s defined by the characteristics of the person. A leader can emerge from any level within an organization. The question that arises is: how do you deal with situations where leadership conflicts with management?

One last thought from Steve:

“The best planned newspapers tend to be the least burned out.”

Ultimately, it’s a matter of definition and efficiency.