What’s the Difference Between Leaders and Managers?
Photo courtesy Kay Ef
What is the difference between leaders and managers?
Some say leaders point out right things to do, while managers ensure that things are done correctly.
Following that definition, anyone can be a leader when his/her experience and knowledge provide the key to overcoming an obstacle.
LEADERSHIP IS AN ACT OF CREATION
This writer’s definition is that “leadership is the creation of structures and processes through which people participate in achieving worthwhile goals.”
This could happen more often if rank, hierarchy, and old ideas about social distance between bosses and workers did not interfere.
Such constraints keep both managers and workers from reaching out to include and share, and still operate in too many work places.
In his exciting 1997 book, Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman pulled together a lot of research to demonstrate that “the qualities of leadership and the qualities of the heart….are largely the same.”
SIMPLE IDEAS
That means simple ideas about caring and sharing and working together toward common goals are the building blocks of leadership. Add to those the ability to project a vision with challenging roles for all and worthwhile outcomes, and the “raw material” of leadership is in view.
GUIDE SUCCESS
How do you develop leaders who can guide their organizations to succeed in a global economy being shaped by unprecedented combinations of cultures and technologies? How do you develop competent managers? One requirement is that leaders invest time in developing their successors, in challenging all the assumptions about “how it is now” to see if those conditions will continue. Probably they will not.
PECULIAR – BUT NECESSARY
It takes a peculiar kind of courage to admit that what is will not be adequate in the future.
More fundamentally, managers need a peculiar kind of courage to reach out to employees, to ask their opinions, to teach them to become fully-participating members of the organization’s problem-solving system. Leaders cannot be developed when 2 or 3 managers, talking behind closed doors, make all the decisions and give orders.
A contemporary corporate hero, Jack Welch of General Electric, is said to have participated in developing over 15,000 leaders, asking them to think about tomorrow’s customers, their needs, and how GE must reshape itself to respond.
SOME TOUGH QUESTIONS
Asking tough questions, listening actively, and participating fully in the dialog about profitable and business-building responses might be a useful way to characterize leaders and the things they do to create role models that others can replicate.
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Woody,
I found that as commanding officer of two successive Navy P-3 squadrons, and later as area commander of a large Logistics Command (USCOMEASTLANT), then ultimately Deputy Commander, Fleet Air Mediterranean, what worked for me was the attitude that since I was senior, I didn’t need to continually prove it. In a pissing contest I knew in advance that I would be the winner, but that we would both get wet! Consequently my style as a senior Naval Officer (CDR,CAPT,REARADMIRAL) was to work pretty much from the heart, as you have suggested in your article. I assiduously worked to avoid ever fostering a culture which resulted in my manager/leaders ( I believe military officers and senior non-coms are required to be both) working behind the scenes trying to get a leg up on each other to gain my favor. I learned that from a salty old (now retired for some years Navy Captain) who said that it was his job to put the right people in positions of responsibility, then get the heck out of the way and let them do their job. If they failed it was HIS fault for picking the wrong person for the job…not the fault of the person he’d picked. Incidentally, that is exactly the way things were seen by IBM when I worked there. employees who didn’t measure up or meet goals and expectations were moved laterally to other positions and the boss at a minimum had egg on his face. An accumulation of egg
on the face of the boss was usually good cause to consider a lateral move for him or her. While IBM may not be the absolute best model to look at, it’s hard to argue with their success over the long haul!
Fitz
Hi Woody,
Being a veteran business executive with over 30 years of experience, including senior level positions with Fortune 50 companies, I’ve found one one easy way to distinguish a manager from a leader. Managers have subordinates and leaders have followers.
Bob
Nice ideas.
‘GIVE A MAN A FISH AND HE WILL EAT FOR A DAY~~TEACH THAT MAN TO FISH AND HE WILL EAT FOR A LIFETIME’
Yes, managers get it done. Leaders mentor, inspire, develop and drive growth & innovation.