Chess:
If one looks at the game of Chess, each piece moves specified by different rules and the player knows the difference between each of the piece. The player leverages on the strengths of each piece, deploys a strategy using the pieces at various stages of the game.Playing Chess is much like managing a team. One needs to note the similarity between chess pieces and team members. Every piece is important for the ultimate aim, the victory. Every piece has its own uniqueness.

What are the three aspects that a manager should know of each of his team members ?
1.What are his/her strengths ?
To know his strengths, the best way is off the work conversations. Hence its very important for the manager to mingle with the team very well and talk about aspects apart from work. Sometimes the easiest way to judge a person’s strength / weakness is by asking 2 questions
“What was the best day at work you’ve had in the past three months?”
“What was the worst day you’ve had at work in the past three months?”

2.What are the triggers that activate his/her strengths?
Pushing a pawn at the right time, castling at the appropriate time are triggers which shape the game. In a similar manner , one needs to trigger the team member at the right time using the right way. In some cases, open recognition before others could act as a trigger, sometimes one-to-one praise can work and in some cases customer recognition could trigger. It is important to recognize the type of trigger for each team member.

3.What the learning style of your team member?
There are usually 3 kinds of learning styles . Some prefer analyzing stuff , some learn only by doing, and some by watching. Its very important to know the learning style and appropriately coach the team member

Why does Chess-like approach makes sense for a manager ?
First, identifying and capitalizing on each person’s uniqueness saves time.
Second, capitalizing on uniqueness makes each person more accountable.
Third, capitalizing on what is unique about each person builds a stronger sense of team,
Finally, when you capitalize on what is unique about each person, you introduce a healthy degree of disruption into your world. You shuffle existing hierarchies:
All that said, the reason great managers focus on uniqueness isn’t just because it makes good business sense.

Golf :
Leadership is like playing golf. One galvanizes the entire effort in putting the ball in to the hole. One overarching objective which is common to all the employees is communicated and the leader propels the commonalities among the team members to a common goal.

It looks like somehow traits wise, the manager and leader possess different mindsets? As Stephen Covey pointed out in one of the books, a manager is one who sharpens the axes of the group trying to figure out a way in the forest, while leader is one who climbs the tree, analyzes the situation and shows the direction for the entire group. Can one slip in to shoes of others? There’s a whole literature on this debate. Any side I take, there are a whole set of arguments against me. Hence I feel the best way is to figure out the answer to the issue by personal experience in my career (hopefully).