Management and leadership as investment When senior executives decide to changedirection, this is seen as leadership. A decision is made to emphasize a different market segment or product group. But such a decision (simply because it is a decision) is an investment decision - not leadership. Decisions flow from authority, leadership is an act of persuasion.

• Leadership, more generally, is always an attempt to influence followers. It is never a decision of any sort. All decisions made by executives are managerial actions.
• When executives make a decision, the implication is that it is their decision to make.
• If you own your own company, you don't need to lead at all - unless of course you want more than mere compliance with your decisions.
• Executives have a choice - decide or lead, deciding is never leading.
• Management can, in fact, be compared usefully to investment - the manager's role is to invest all personal and organizational resources so as to obtain the best return on investment - this applies to people as well as financial resources.
• Management entails efficiency, system, consistency, cost control, wise investment.
• Leadership, by contrast, breaks boundaries, cuts corners, throws out the old, challenges the system, makes mistakes, takes risks and abhors efficiency.
• Some say we are moving away from mechanistic to so-called organic organizations - those that are more flexible and quick to learn.
• But we need both leadership and management - the latter to generate profit and get results, the former to create new futures.
• Not many people are equally good at both leadership and management, hence why so many senior executives emphasize one function at the expense of the other.
• Emotionally intelligent executives will appoint complementary types to their teams.
• Less emotionally intelligent executives who are better managers than leaders will want to call themselves leaders even though what they are doing is primarily management.

All pages written by Mitch McCrimmon, Ph.D. and copyright © Self Renewal Group 1996-2008