Jun
8
I have written in a previous posts on the differences between management and leadership and recently I can across an interesting article with an interesting take on the topic.
“Management can be taught. Leadership cannot be taught or learned, it must be earned.”
I like this perspective, it means that leadership is a choice, it’s the result of out attitudes, values, behaviours and our effectiveness. In a nutshell, it’s the results we achieve and how we go about achieving them.
“If one looks at management development literature, it is only over the last 15 - and particularly the last 10 - years that leadership is mentioned at all. Prior to that, leadership was mostly only assigned to historical political figures such as Napoleon, Churchill, Kennedy and so on. These were people who earned the title leader. Leader was never assigned to organisational supremos. Nor was it given to any manager. It seems that some writers, keen to establish what makes a great manager great, settled on the term leadership as a distinguishing factor. Then they tried to define it. Then we tried to measure it. Some of us even tried to teach it! And there our troubles began…… My contention is that one becomes a manager when one signs on for the job, be it head of the country, firm, school, department or first-line supervisor. One only becomes a leader when other people say so….. This definition of leadership, rather than focusing on the inputs, such as personal skills, characteristics, competencies, traits etc, focuses on the outputs. Managers are judged on their status as a leader in the eyes of their followers and stakeholders by what they do and achieve.”
In his research, Bob Selden, the author of “What To Do When You Become The Boss”, found the following four condition required to create the essence of leadership, these are the conditions required for others to follow, there needs to be:
- A shared understanding of the environment - ‘We know what we face‘
- A shared vision of where we are going - ‘We know what we have to do’
- A shared set of organisational values - ‘We are in this together‘
- A shared feeling of power - ‘We can do this‘
What I like about the above four conditions of leadership is that they are shared by the team and the organisation. This view is consistent with Peter Senge who describes leadership as:
"a capacity in the human community to shape its future."
Although the leader makes a choice to create the conditions for leadership, once these conditions are in place, the community becomes empowered to take action towards the shared vision, the result is leadership.
"The wicked leader is he who people despise. The good leader is he who people revere. The great leader is he who the people say we did it ourselves." - Lao Tsu
Considering this perspective on management and leadership and the results of your management over the past year. Take some time to ask yourself the following questions:
- Have you made the choice to lead?
- Have you established the four conditions for leadership in your team?
- If not, what actions can you take over the next few weeks to establish these conditions in your team?
Technorati Tags: Leadership, Management, Teamwork, Business, Book, Vision, Values, Research
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4 Responses to “The essential difference between Leadership and Management”
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I want to thank you for a newsletter I forward to many people saying, “This is my favorite.”
While I agree that there is a difference between leadership & management, I’m trying to relate myself to this topic.
I work in an Indian IT industry, where the general trend is that someone joins as a developer and over the years become a project manager and probably if luck favors, they will retire as a CXO. So in this context how can I distinguish myself as a leader rather than a ‘just another’ manager?
First visit mate, great post and a great blog overall. I like the last bit of this article :
* Have you made the choice to lead?
* Have you established the four conditions for leadership in your team?
* If not, what actions can you take over the next few weeks to establish these conditions in your team?
I’ve always believed that if you narrow things to a simple list of word or phrases which can people remember, it will have more effect on people than writing a 10 page article on it.
Great job. Will be visiting again no doubt.
Nash,
http://www.visionsprojection.com
I definitely aggree that there is distinct difference between the Managers and Leaders. Unfortunately many people in industry are fulfilling the role of manager, as in they are managing a defined process. The part they mainly seems to fail in is the vision, people skils and creativity that a true leader brings to the table.