I was 21 years old when I was offered my first management position. I was working at a restaurant as a line cook when one of the managers left to take a general manager position at another restaurant. I was thrilled when he asked me to join him and work as his kitchen manager, and really I was so full of myself and thought I knew everything.

I showed up on my first day at the new restaurant with a head full of ideas and the confidence that everyone was going to follow me because my name tag had the word manager printed on it. A few months later I found myself in the general manager’s office being asked to explain what events led up to me kicking a trash can across the kitchen and what I thought I was going to accomplish by yelling at the team.

“I’m mad because they won’t do what I tell them to do” I said.

Mark, the General Manager, opened his desk drawer and pulled out a rubber band and a pair of scissors. He cut the rubber band in half and straightened it out on his desk.

“Now” he said, “I want you to push this rubber band across the desk.”

I pushed but the rubber band stuck to the desk and just balled up. “I can’t” I said. “The rubber just sticks to the desk and doesn’t go anywhere.”

He smiled and replied, “Now try leading the rubber band across the desk by pulling it.”

I grabbed the front of the band and pulled. The band straightened out and followed my hand across the desk. Mark beamed with pride and said, “Do you get it?”

Still being mad I said “No, what does this rubber band have to do with anything?” Good thing Mark was more patient than I was. He took the time to explain it to me and after a few minutes he was able to get through to me. I was confusing management with leadership and didn’t understand the difference between positional power and influential power.

The confusion between positional power and influential power is not a mistake that is made only by 21 year old new managers. The examples of shift supervisors to C suite executives that have relied on positional power to affect action are numerous. It is the folly of many to assume that people will do what is asked because of a title.

In a hierarchical organizational structure, many assume that the higher up the structure they climb the more authority they will be able to wield due to the inherent power in a title. In the short term they may be correct.

However, leadership is not inherent in a title.

Yet, organizations often embed the word leadership in a positional title as if the title itself will bestow the characteristics of leadership and grant influential power. An increasingly competitive labor market is driving organizations to differentiate themselves and many are using the words “manager” and “leader” interchangeably in job titles, as if the words were synonyms, to attract a better work force.

One of my favorite quotes from Peter Drucker is “Management is doing things right and leadership is doing the right things.” Management is action that is taken on process and procedures. It is measuring the actual outcome against the desired outcomes and improving methods to reduce variances. Management uses Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) to predict success and forecast variances. A manager can use positional power to sign a contract in order to procure resources to change KPI’s.

However, the title does not have the inherent ability to inspire others to be curious about how to improve processes. The science of management does not account for caring for people, but the art of leadership is based on acts of service to those that choose to follow. People will follow those that influence them.

Every position has elements of management and leadership. For a shift supervisor, their job may require 70% management and 30% leadership. The inverse may be true for a C suite executive. The difficulty is being able to discern when a situation requires management and when it requires leadership.

With my past business experiences, I spent a lot of time with team members that are either exploring management positions or have recently been promoted to a management position.

This development time is used to provide them with a system to be able to discern what is a management problem and what is a leadership issue. They learn how and when to use positional power and how to build influential power. The first step is understanding the difference between position and influence. Most new managers react to problems and are driven by emotional responses.

The key is to help them to recognize situations so they can step back and make thoughtful choices on how to proceed. Helping managers to determine if an undesired outcome is a process or people issue aids them in determining if the solution requires positional power or influence. Effective leaders manage processes and lead people.

We use these questions to help them analyze the situation:

Is it a process or people issue?
If it is a process issue what has changed? What needs to change to resolve the issue?
If it is a people problem is the problem a competency or commitment issue?
If it is a competency issue has the person been trained?
If it is a commitment issue do they understand the expectations?

At first this may seem very robotic but after practice and experience it becomes more intuitive and we can feel our way through most situations. However, even after years of experience I still use this for complex situations.

Most new managers are given technical classes on how to run a report to discover outcome variances but little coaching on how to correct the variance when it involves people. The tools that are provided for resolving people issues normally are reduced to information delivery systems so that the underperforming team member is aware of the issue and passed all responsibility to self-correct. This reduces the manager to an information source for performance and creates long term situations of team member turn over and constant frustration from lack of progress. In most small businesses there is little development in helping a new manager understand influence or how to cultivate it.

Most people will think of the cool kids table in high school when they think of influence. The acceptable and unacceptable clothes, music and interest flowed from a small group of kids that seemed to just know what would spark envy and awe. Even today social media has bestowed the title of influencer on people that are able to direct our purchases based on what they deem worthy and cool. This is a type of influential power, but it is shallow.

Real influence is derived from consistent behavior, integrity, commitment to excellence and fairness. Influence can be erased by bad behavior. Hollywood and Washington DC are littered with examples of once influential people stripped of all creditability and influence due to bad behavior. When managers act consistently, demonstrate integrity, strive for excellence, and treat people fairly they become trustworthy and trust opens the door for influence.

Small business owners need to be committed to coaching managers to develop influence and providing the direction to think first as a leader. This shift may allow for increase operational variances in the short term ,but will create a stronger and more stable team in the long term allowing for the owner to spend less time working IN their business and more time working ON their business.

Guest post by Scott Harbour.