The Difference Between Leadership and ManagementIt is important to understand the difference between leadership and management. A great manager does not necessarily make a great leader, and a great leader often makes a terrible manger. Yet for some reason we seem to think that a good manager can go on to become a great leader. We often assume that a great leader can manage a project. They are likely to be the worst people for project management. They have neither the patience, detail and organisational skills, nor the desire.To keep the difference between leadership and management very simple, we are going to define their tasks in first, second and third person. A great manager is managing a third person project, task, role, event, team. For example, company ABC needs to get task A completed by the end of the month. A manager is the person in between the project, which is referenced in third person, and its completion. They facilitate and manage the process. “I am managing X to be completed by the end of the month.” Often managers need to lead the other people running the project, so leadership skills would be very desirable. However, not all managers have these skills because their level of self authority may be quite low. Many managers are happy to manage, and uncomfortable to lead. They do not want the responsibility that comes with leadership and setting overarching direction. Even with different leadership styles a great leader works in the first person. They are the leader, they set the direction. People follow their lead. They set the third person projects, processes, roles etc for a manager. “I want X done by the end of the month.” A great leader has high self authority. (Self authorship.) They speak with a clear voice and aligned intent. Their responsibility is not only for the success of the project that is being managed, but also for the fall out of everything as a result of this project. They must be mindful of the
Field Effects.
A coach operates in second person. “This is your agenda.” “What have you learned here?” “How could you have done this differently?” A manager and a leader will use the coach approach if they are smart, as it encourages higher responsibility in their people and ultimately saves time. Below is a simple chart highlighting the difference between leadership and management. Please note, this is a generalised chart and speaks more to what is required in most cases, not what is true in specific cases. It is only an overview and not a comprehensive set of skills needed.
A leader needs to speak from a place of congruence and alignment. While the difference between leadership and management has more complexity than this article allows, we hope that this has given a brief insight into some of the more obvious surface issues. To Return from the difference between leadership and management to leadership development
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