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How
do managers differ from leaders?
- Managers
are often not seen as leaders but as administrators.
- These
pages are about how all employees can be leaders.
- This page
discusses how managers specifically can be leaders.
- It depends
on how we define leadership. Here, the meaning of leadership =
promoting new directions. It has nothing to do with being in a
position of authority over others. What is management? This is
having responsibility for people and other resources with the
goal of getting work done as efficiently as possible. The goal
of the manager is to execute the directions promoted by the leader.
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- Managers
do not differ from leaders based on their personalities or their
styles.
- Leaders
are not just more lively, charismatic or larger than life managers.
- Any manager
can lead by promoting new directions.
- Managers
can be as inpiring as leaders, but when they are wearing their
managerial hat, hence aiming to get things done efficiently, they
try to inspire employees to improve performance rather than move
them to change direction as leaders do.
- Both leaders
and managers can influence quietly or by example without being
charismatic.
- Quiet
conviction can be as powerful as a cheerleader's enthusiasm.
- Management
is only a role not a type of action.
- You can
lead regardless of your position provided you promote new directions
that are compelling to others.
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Process or content
leadership
- There are two
fundamental organizational tasks:
- devising
new directions.
- executing
existing ones.
- The former requires
leadership, the latter management.
- There are two
types of new direction.
- doing something
completely new - new products, services.
- doing the
same thing only better - improving quality, efficiency, customer
service.
- The first type
of new direction calls for content leadership.
- The second type
is a mixture of leadership and management - process leadership.
- The process
leader initiates change but only to improve how existing directions
are executed. This is leadership with a managerial emphasis.
- All three types
- content leader, manager, process leader are differentiated by what
they focus on. It has nothing to do with style or personality.
- The first two
have an undiluted focus while the latter combines the first two.
- Style and personality
come into it only through the means used to influence followers.
- Quieter types
set an example or express quiet conviction. Lively types make more noise
but their style is not the differentiating factor between leading and
managing.
- Leaders influence
changes in direction, managers motivate performance improvements.
- For example,
a lively Sales Director might have the personality we associate with
a conventional leader but if his/her focus is strictly performance improvement
then this is just management no matter how powerfully persuasive is
the Sales Director's style.
- Some managers
find it easier to devise improvements in how current directions are
executed than to come up with fundamentally new directions.
- Similarly, some
leaders do not have strong enough systems thinking, patience, detail
orientation and organizational skills to improve existing processes.
- For a manager
to be a leader it is a matter of focusing on what can be changed to
improve things. You lead whenever you initiate any change. That's the
essence of leadership. How you influence people is the means not the
substance of leadership.
All
pages written by Mitch
McCrimmon, Ph.D. and copyright © Self Renewal Group 1996-2008
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