Are We Leading or Managing Volunteers?

Sometimes we talk about managing volunteers, while other times we focus on leadership when it comes to working with volunteers. Leadership and management are both concerned with providing direction for an organization. So, is there a difference between leading and managing volunteers? Yes! Let's take a look.

Management focuses on plans, schedules, tasks, policies and procedures. Managers make sure everyone is doing their job. In Extension, we use the volunteer management model, ISOTURE as a guide. And, being concerned with the daily tasks of recruiting, screening and recognizing volunteers as well as planning, implementing and evaluating programs is critical to the success of our volunteer program.

Leadership focuses on the long-term future by providing a vision for the organization and moving it forward. Leaders focus on motivating and inspiring people so that the vision and goals of the organization can be achieved. Leaders create excitement and inspire enthusiasm among followers (in this case, volunteers). It takes time and relationship building to get this done. As a leader, it's also important that we recruit volunteers that will share the vision of the organization with us, striving to achieve Extension's mission of "improving lives, improving Texas."

Management and leadership are essential in any organization, including when we are working with volunteers. One cannot replace the other. Instead, one should be in addition to the other. Sometimes it's easy to get caught up in all of the management tasks and forget to lead and vision for the future. In Extension, we use the words interchangeably; however, the important point to remember is that we must take time to manage and lead our volunteers. They should both be integrated effectively to lead to success with our volunteer programs.