What's the difference between managers and leaders?

• It's not a matter of personality or a matter of style: how they influence you.
• It 's purely about what they focus on.
• Leaders focus on devising or championing new directions
• Managers execute or implement existing directions and maintain efficient operations.
• A highly motivational manager is not a leader who focuses on improving performance.
• Anybody who advocates new directions through innovation no matter how quietly is attempting to lead others.
• This functional definition implies that personality alone isn't a differentiating factor.
• Simply put: leaders direct, managers execute.
• To clarify: managers also provide direction but only on HOW to execute efficiently.
• Leaders provide NEW directions.
• Management is like investment - you want to invest all resources at your disposal as efficiently as possible in order to get the best return on them you can.
• Strictly speaking, you don't even have to have subordinates to be a manager - every employee has resources to dispose - time, talent, energy, organizational resources, etc.
• However, the term manager is normally reserved for a formal role in a hierarchy.
• Leadership is not about occupying a role - it's about doing something different.
• This leaves a question - there are two types of new direction - innovation in products that take organizations into new markets and changes that improve what you are doing now.
• The latter is a mixture of leadership and better management.
• This is a functional definition of leadership and management, just like sales and marketing which are defined by the purpose or function they serve in organizations.
• We can also distinguish between content and process leadership.
• The content leader takes the organization in completely new directions.
• The process leader improves how the organization executes existing directions.
• Most senior executives show more process than content leadership. Depending on the industry and the degree to which the organization competes on the basis of innovation as opposed to being a low cost, quality producer, executives will vary the % of time they spend on each of these functions.
• In banks where changes in fundamental direction are infrequent, top executives are mainly managers mainly showing process leadership, rarely content leadership.
• In a software company, the percentages will be reversed because new directions have to be devised continuously to compete effectively.
• This might sound strange because we are so accustomed to seeing an executive as a leader solely because of his or her personality or position.
• Naturally, some people will be more disposed to breaking new ground (content leadership) while others will excel at doing familiar things efficiently (management) or initiating changes to improve the efficiency of execution (process leadership).
• But the definitions of leadership and management revolve around their output or focus, not input, ie. personality.

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