What's the Difference Between Management and Leadership?
By: Jason Willey
Leadership is one of the most researched and published topics
over the past 20 years. Right now, you
can walk into almost any book store and find 25-100 books on leadership best
practices, tips, tricks, do’s and don’ts.
But how is this different than the topic of management? Isn't a manager a leader and vice versa?
Some still think so, but we beg to differ.
Management and Leadership Differences
You might be thinking, "Wait, is this one of those 'a manager
can be a leader, but a leader can’t be a manager' things?" Not really. Management, in its basic form is progressing throughout the workday with little to no incident. Most managers work to
make sure things stay the same and their employees do their job. Their primary focus is to oversee the day to
day activities of their staff and make sure things run smoothly.
Leadership takes it a step further. Leadership is having a “strategic mindset”
versus a “day to day mindset.” Leaders develop a vision; they rally the troops
and make big things happen. Leaders push
the boundaries, break through barriers and forge new paths! Leaders find ways to not only meet the goal,
but surpass it.
Effective leaders also
have people willingly following
them. John Maxwell once said, “If you
think you are a leader, but no one is following you, you’re just taking a
walk.”
An easy way to think of the difference between the two is: management
is working in a “one to one” relationship, versus leadership, which is a “one
to many” relationship.
Using Work of Leaders to Help Define Management and Leadership
One of our customers, a human resource director from a major
quality of life corporation, is currently running an eight month Management
Leadership Training (MLT) course with her high level employees. She is using the
Everything DiSC Work of Leaders assessment to help her people
understand that leadership is about seeing the big picture and understanding
how to effectively move yourself, and your people, to a better place. Telling your employees, "You may be a manager now, but we want you to be a leader tomorrow" has to have a positive effect on their outlook, don't you think?
She says, “The first class in the MLT discusses the
difference between Management and Leadership.
You can really see the participants start to grasp the concept of
leadership!” The
Work of Leaders assessment helps with this and focuses on
leadership in three areas:
Crafting a
Vision,
Building Alignment and
Champion Execution. Based on your answers to the assessment, you
may have strengths or weaknesses in these areas. Learning this information helps to build
self-awareness and most importantly, awareness of the difference between
management and leadership.
Don’t just manage the status quo, strive to be a
leader. Your world needs more leaders!
