HOW IS MANAGEMENT DIFFERENT FROM LEADERSHIP

Management and leadership are words that have been used in business and industry to describe women and men in positions of authority over others for decades, and oft times interchangeably without clearly spelling out and indicating what they mean. In my opinion they are clearly two distinctive skills sets. When your are hiring or appraising individuals for these positions where there is authority over others, make sure you assess or develop these individuals for the skill set that you really want in the position.

When I google the two words and search for the differences between them, I get the following differences generally:

Management consists of controlling a group and their activities including planning and follow-through to accomplish a goal or set of goals. 

Leadership consists of influencing people, so that the objectives are attained willingly and enthusiastically. Leadership refers to a person in a position of authority to inspire, influence, and motivate, others to contribute toward organizational success.

I picked two different articles over the past years that capture the differences between management and leadership, with each article pointing in the same direction, but from different perspectives:

ARTICLE 1

Three Differences Between Managers and Leaders

by Vineet Nayar, Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 02, 2013

A young manager accosted me the other day. “I’ve been reading all about leadership, have implemented several ideas, and think I’m doing a good job at leading my team. How will I know when I’ve crossed over from being a manager to a leader?” he wanted to know.

I didn’t have a ready answer and it’s a complicated issue, so we decided to talk the next day. I thought long and hard, and came up with three tests that will help you decide if you’ve made the shift from managing people to leading them.

Counting value vs Creating value. You’re probably counting value, not adding it, if you’re managing people. Only managers count value; some even reduce value by disabling those who add value. If a diamond cutter is asked to report every 15 minutes how many stones he has cut, by distracting him, his boss is subtracting value.

By contrast, leaders focuses on creating value, saying: “I’d like you to handle A while I deal with B.” He or she generates value over and above that which the team creates, and is as much a value-creator as his or her followers are. Leading by example and leading by enabling people are the hallmarks of action-based leadership.

Circles of influence vs Circles of power. Just as managers have subordinates and leaders have followers, managers create circles of power while leaders create circles of influence.

The quickest way to figure out which of the two you’re doing is to count the number of people outside your reporting hierarchy who come to you for advice. The more that do, the more likely it is that you are perceived to be a leader.

Leading people vs Managing work. Management consists of controlling a group or a set of entities to accomplish a goal. Leadership refers to an individual’s ability to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute toward organizational success. Influence and inspiration separate leaders from managers, not power and control.

In India, M.K. Gandhi inspired millions of people to fight for their rights, and he walked shoulder to shoulder with them so India could achieve independence in 1947. His vision became everyone’s dream and ensured that the country’s push for independence was unstoppable. The world needs leaders like him who can think beyond problems, have a vision, and inspire people to convert challenges into opportunities, a step at a time.

I encouraged my colleague to put this theory to the test by inviting his team-mates for chats. When they stop discussing the tasks at hand — and talk about vision, purpose, and aspirations instead, that’s when you will know you have become a leader.

ARTICLE 2

The Difference Between Leadership and Management

from Next Generation, August, 2018

People often mistake leadership and management as the same thing but in essence, they are very different. The main difference between the two is that leaders have people that follow them, while managers have people who simply work for them. Particularly in small businesses, for a small business owner to be successful they need to be both a strong leader and manager to get their team on board with working towards their vision of success. Leadership is about getting people to comprehend and believe in the vision you set for the company and to work with you on achieving your goals, while management is more about administering and making sure the day-to-day activities are happening as they should.

Leadership and management must go hand in hand. They are not the same thing, but they are necessarily linked and complementary to one another. Any effort to separate the two within an organisation is likely to cause more problems than it solves. For any company to be successful, it needs management that can plan, organise and coordinate its staff, while also inspiring and motivating them to perform to the best of their ability.

LEADERSHIP IS ABOUT INSPIRING AND MANAGEMENT IS ABOUT PLANNING

Leaders have a tendency to praise success and drive people, whereas managers work to find faults. They paint a picture of what they see as possible for the company and work to inspire and engage their people in turning that vision into reality. Rather than seeing individuals as just a particular set of skills, they think beyond what they do and activate them to be part of something much bigger. They’re well aware of how high-functioning teams can accomplish a lot more when working together than individuals working autonomously are ever able to achieve.

For both sides to understand what they have to do, and to achieve excellence in doing it, they need to comprehend the essence of the difference between them. This is a matter of definition – understanding how the roles are different and how they might overlap. Managers, on the other hand, will focus on setting, measuring and achieving goals by controlling situations to reach or exceed their objectives.

MANAGEMENT vs LEADERSHIP

Managers Give Directions/Leaders ask questions

Managers have subordinates/Leaders have followers

Managers use an authoritarian style/Leaders have a motivational style

Managers tell what to do/Leaders show what to do

Managers have good ideas/Leaders implement good ideas

Managers react to change/Leaders create change

Managers try to be heroes/Leaders make heroes of everyone around them

Managers exercise power over people/Leaders develop power with people

You must think of one without the other to truly see the differences that exist between them.  Management without leadership controls resources to maintain.

There are many different types of leadership and management styles where different situations, groups, or cultures, may require the use of different styles in order to set a direction or ensure that it is followed.

One way to decipher which of the two you may be is to count the number of people outside your reporting hierarchy who come to you for advice. The more that do, the more likely it is that you are perceived to be a leader.

John Kotter, Professor of Leadership at Harvard University, fears that too often, employers use the terms synonymously. They should not.

Mentoring and formal training can help employees utilise and use their leadership skills. According to research by the Chartered Management Institute, 90% of members who have completed a management and leadership qualification found the experience improved their performance at work. There was also a “ripple effect”, with 81% of those surveyed passing on their knowledge to colleagues.

Celebrating individual leaders can also cause some to forget that it is never just one person running the show.

Not everyone who is in charge of a team is both a leader and a manager, in order to have a successful organisation, there needs to be a mixture of both.

Many people are both, having managed people but realised that you cannot buy people to follow you down a difficult path, and so act as leaders too. The challenge lies in making sure you are both leading your team as well as managing your day to day operation. Those who are able to do both, will create a competitive advantage.