"Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality"

Management is the process of dealing with or controlling things or people. While leadership is the action of inspiring and influencing a group of people or an organization to achieve a common goal. For example, management deal with planning and budgeting, while leaders will motivate people. For example, management deal with planning and budgeting, whilst leaders will motivate people. In my opinion, if you manage a team of shelter workers, you simply ensure that they all meet the minimum targets and conform to shelter’s policies and protocols. If you are a leader, you also motivate these workers and engage with them on a more personal level to ensure that goals, policies and protocols are consistently met and that workers are not discouraged and disheartened.

I do agree that many organizations are over-managed and under-led.

An over-managed organization is one in which the management creates obstacles that prohibit employees from being able to do their job. I like to call this "micro-management." Micro-management closely observes and even controls every aspect of their staff’s work. They do not allow staff to make any decisions without consultation, and their ability to delegate is poor. Being overly-managed creates an atmosphere with no passion and frustrated employees who feel they cannot be trusted. Showing flexibility encourages team members to take ownership in their work and to find creative solutions to their problems. As an educator, I have experienced this in more than one situation. For example, teachers spend more time planning lessons than they actually do teaching. I left a teaching job of 20 years due to being over managed and poorly led. Excessive and redundant paperwork is a result of over-management and can greatly affect the moral of the team. The role of management is to control employees to achieve a desired result where leadership is the ability of an individual to influence and motivate others to contribute to the organization's success. Being a leader means you connect with the people in a way that transforms the organization. Leaders have vision and values with purpose. They are good listeners and communicators and build self confidence in team members. Managing is often tangible and task-oriented, and checking items off our to-do list. Management makes us feel good because we can see progress quickly. Leadership can be more complex, ambiguous, and the results of our labor aren’t always immediately evident. If we aren’t careful, organizational life will cause us to drift toward managing instead of leading, and that doesn’t serve ourselves, our employees, or our organizations. To survive in the world of animal rescue and animal shelters, you need a clear plan, a mission and a guide. Working in animal welfare is emotional and often unpredictable. Somedays I feel like I am just herding cats. It is important for leaders to keep clear and concise goals and not try to take on more than the group can handle. For example, a small county shelter spay neuter/clinic can turn into a tri-state clinic, a foster program and TNR program overnight. All are great programs however, it may not be within the scope of the shelter. Leaders can keep people focused on the work at hand. Leaders also use the words we as opposed to me and strive to develop those around them. They recognize that we are all in this together and look at the long term goals of the group. Leaders encourage everyone to work together for the cause. There is a place in shelter medicine for management. Protocols that serve the health and well-being of shelter animals must be managed. For example, cleaning and disinfecting protocols must be followed to prevent disease from being transmitted to healthy patients. A manager needs to oversee protocols and make sure that they are being followed by all employees. Shelters that are over-managed an under led risk workers feeling controlled and not trusted. The “my way or the highway” approach does not motivate others. With the correct balance of leadership and management a shelter can flourish with team spirit and desired results.