3 questions with Bruce Carnegie-Brown, President of CMI

UWE, in partnership with Business West, runs an annual lecture series that brings top business leaders to Bristol. We caught up with Bruce Carnegie-Brown, President of CMI before he gave his talk ‘21st Century Management’.

1. What is the difference between leadership and management?

I think that the boundary between leadership and management is reasonably fluid, and often people use the words interchangeably.

In the UK, I think that management tends to be undervalued, they prefer leadership and tend to think of management as bureaucratic in nature. But, in fact, management is all about organisations, efficiency, process and systems - relentless day to day improvement.

Leadership is much more inspirational and its much more individual. Leaders typically signpost towards the future, rather than dwell in the present.

In an ideal world you’d be both a manager and a leader. If you’re only one, rather than the other, I think you’re leaving something on the table.

2.What qualities must a manager have during this time of rapid change?

Increasingly, we all have to have technical skills in the areas we are good at. But if you really want to differentiate yourself as a manager – I think it’s the soft skills that represent that differentiation: empathy, trust and judgement.

Investing in and developing those skills is as important as developing the hard edge skills of technical capability.

3. What advice would you give to graduates seeking employment in a shifting world?

At a very pragmatic level, you have to do your homework.

There’s plenty of information about the companies and industries you’re interested in working for online, so it’s reasonable for employers to expect that you’ve done your homework about what it would be like to work there.

At a more aspirational level, my view is that it’s much easier to work in businesses that are growing in sectors of the economy that are growing rather than declining.

Finally, I’d point you to the words of that great management guru Dolly Parton, who said: “figure out who you are and then go and do it on purpose”.

I love the juxtaposition of ‘figuring out who you are’ – I think that’s what university is all about – and the idea of ‘doing it on purpose’, which conjures up conviction and passion about what you want to do. If you can put those things together, you’ll surely succeed. 

This series of free public lectures brings top level business leaders to Bristol. You can discuss these events on Twitter using the hashtag #BristolLectures and view further content from Bruce Carnegie-Brown’s lecture here. For more information please contact events@uwe.ac.uk.