“Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall” — Stephen Covey
Leadership and management are two completely different things – yet they are both a necessity for an organization to properly grow and strive! It’s tough to not get them confused, but leadership is not management. Management does consist of leadership, but in a different context. What is the main difference between leadership and management? I thought you would never ask! While many of you may think that these two terms mean the same thing, this is not the case. Leaders and managers can possess some very different skills and characteristics which we will be sure to cover later in this blog teaching.
The dictionary defines managing as “a person responsible for controlling or administering all or part of a company or similar organization”. While it simply defines leadership as “The action of leading a group of people or an organization”
I’ve come to learn about myself that the more I’ve pushed to grow in my leadership, I’ve really regressed as a manager. And I’m learning to adapt to it more and more each day! There was a time in my journey where I was a great manager. And it was through being a great manager that I began a business journey that built a multi-million dollar organization very quickly. And I was blessed to have some great people that wanted to go along with me on the journey, even though I know I was not the leader they needed to help them grow! But being a great manager came to a head around 2016/17. For those of you that know my story of our business growth, I’ve mentioned that those years were some of the darkest years of my journey. There were many times I sat with tears coming down my face thinking to myself that I was not the person that could run the business we had grown for the last 5-6 years. I knew that if we were going to continue on, something had to change. And that began the years of my leadership journey that I am obsessed with today for personal growth and leadership development. I have come to know that the more I invest in growing myself, the better everybody else gets around me! When I was focused more on managing the business, and not leading our people or even leading myself, our organization(and me) was a mess. It was because it lacked leadership, AND proper management! Let’s unpack what I have come to know about the difference between leading and managing. And even more important, the value of BOTH.
My wife Brandi manages our home. She is the glue that holds us together and keeps us organized. It’s my role as a leader to support her in whatever she needs, and whenever she needs it! For example, with our kids’ busy activity schedule. There are certain days of the week that she needs me to take our son to soccer practice. Or on Thursdays, it’s my night to bring dinner home so that she doesn’t have to cook dinner for our family while she gets our kids to their activities. We live very busy lives between business and family time, but it all works out because we have great leadership / management balance! And we communicate A LOT. Much like the way we orchestrate things in our business, our home is an organization. And it requires systems, process, management, and leadership!
Management is a focus on the tasks at hand and getting them done – Example: How can I best accomplish certain things? Leadership deals with the top line items: What are the things we need to accomplish? In Stephen Covey’s incredible book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, Stephen said “You can quickly grasp the important difference between the two if you envision a group of producers cutting their way through the jungle with machetes. They’re the producers, the problem solvers. They’re cutting through the undergrowth, clearing it out. The managers are behind them, sharpening their machetes, writing policy and procedure manuals, holding muscle development programs, bringing in improved technologies, and setting up working schedules and compensation programs for machete wielders.”
As individuals, groups, and organizations, we’re often so busy in the weeds that we don’t even realize we’re venturing through in the wrong jungle. And the rapidly changing environment in which we live makes effective leadership more critical than it has ever been!
Leadership and management are often considered to have overlapping functions. While this can be true, these two terms have different meanings and shouldn’t be used interchangeably. Both imply a unique set of functions, characteristics, and skills that share similarities. However, they show prominent differences. For example, some managers do not practice leadership, while others lead without a managerial role.
A manager is generally someone who is selected or appointed within an organization. In most cases, a manager is selected based on specific technical skills, knowledge, and expertise. On the contrary, the greatest leadership skill is to influence and inspire people! In any organization, just like in our homes, it is important to have both great leaders and great managers. Organizations need good leaders to achieve the mission and vision. They also need good managers to ensure that things are getting done correctly with excellence and that their teams are aligned with the company’s goals. To put it simply: Leaders set the vision, Managers follow It and bring it to fruition!
When it comes to setting and executing a company’s mission and vision, this is primarily where managers and leaders have different roles.
Leaders are visionaries. MOST leaders have a clear vision of where they want their organizations to be in the future. However, they themselves are not the only ones responsible for making that vision come true. This is where top managers play that crucial role. While leaders may be responsible, through great communication, to transfer the company’s mission, vision and goals to the entire organization, managers are responsible for keeping the Team aligned with the core company values and goals.
Even though managers are the ones who can influence our people to work towards the same objectives, many employees agree that their company doesn’t do a good job communicating the company’s goals. Even moreso, they want and expect to be informed about how their organization is doing and where it is heading! This memory from 2015 / 16 really plays out in my head over and over when our culture was a mess.
Are you still with me? Good! I will tie a bow on this teaching with a few key differences between leaders and managers!
- Managers minimize risk; leaders take risks
- Managers avoid conflict; leaders use conflict to help drive change in the culture of the team
- A manager is a title that can be given that signifies a position; a leader is a title that other people give you.
- Management is about coping with complexity. Without good management, growing organizations tend to become chaotic. Good management brings a degree of order and consistency. Leadership, by contrast, is about coping with change. More change always demands more leadership! Never forget that!
- Managers are a necessity; leaders are essential.
- Management and leadership are distinct concepts but are also the same. Neither is more important than the other except in the context of an organization’s current needs.
- Don’t miss this one – This is one of my favorites… Managers embrace process, seek stability and control, and instinctively try to resolve problems quickly and tactfully – sometimes before they fully even understand a problem’s significance. Leaders, in exact contrast, tolerate some chaos sometimes, and lack of structure, and are willing to delay closure in order to understand the issues more fully!
Reading this, Would you identify as a leader or a manager? Are you inspiring positive, incremental change by empowering your people to work toward a common objective? Or, are you a manager that isn’t even aware of why a change is happening all around you!
If your people are not inspired by what you have to say, there is little that managers can do to help the people in your organization succeed. By developing a personal leadership style through self-reflection, authentic communication and continuous feedback, you can become a leader that can empower the workforce, get your followers’ attention and inspire them to pursue your organizational mission!
Let’s get this plane landed… Remember that as a leader, it is your duty to uphold the core company values and beliefs of your organization’s culture through your actions. As a passion driven and inspiring leader, you have a great power to communicate the organizational culture and to influence your team’s behaviors. Or you can choose to focus more on managing, but I can assure you that the growth ceiling is much lower if you do.
I’ve come to learn that things are much better in our organization since I’ve gotten out of the way and let my team do what they do best! My role is to support them in whatever they need to succeed at their goals, and continuously hold them accountable to see to it that our values are always being lived out every single day in everything we do! As I mentioned above with regressing as a manager, I’ve come to grips to be ok with that. I’ve never been busier using my time thinking up new and creative ideas to make our organization better today than it was yesterday, and I have some great growing leaders alongside me for the journey. I also have some incredible managers busy executing on the ideas – And it makes for a great collaboration!