Not all managers are leaders and vice versa not all leaders have managers role. Where does the difference lies? According to Kotter, author of the best selling book Accelerate, these are two very different concepts.
- Management is a set of well-known processes, like planning, budgeting, structuring jobs, staffing jobs, measuring performance and problem-solving, which help an organization to predictably do what it knows how to do well.
- Leadership is about vision, about people buying in, about empowerment and, most of all, about producing useful change. Leadership is not about attributes, it’s about behavior.
- An organization with many leaders but no management will be adaptive and energetic but run in a chaotic way. On the other hand, an organization with many levels of management and very few leaders will be bureaucratic, slow, stagnant in the status quo and will not be able to change quickly enough to meet the rapid market need. A great organization will have a good number of managers who also display leadership and can align, motivate, and inspire people towards a vision (see images below for summary).
Interested to know more? I recommend to read the book Accelerate it is an excellent book for anyone who wants to leapfrog his/her organization to the next level.
So what is the biggest take home message? Do not wait for a mandated “management” title to be a leader and make positive change in your organization!
Reference:
Dare Mighty Things 