I find that all too often discussions seem to confuse the concept of leadership with the concept of management. Leadership resources often seem to focus on what are really management issues. We manage processes and lead people. Recently during a meeting I heard someone offer this simple explanation of this simple philosophy of the culture and values of their business and it struck a chord with me. In one simple expression captures the essence of the difference between leadership and management.
Leadership is about the influence one has over people. In order to lead others you must instill a common sense of purpose and shared values. Others have to embrace a vision for what can be accomplished and apply a shared set of values to solve problems and challenges that arise along the way. Leadership is not about establishing the specific steps in a process to accomplish a goal, but about instilling a sense of purpose and a shared vision and commitment to the outcome you seek to achieve and empowering others to pursue goals.
Management on the other hand focuses on defining processes. Management focuses on establishing clear processes that result in a consistent quality of work product that is produced efficiently. Peter Drucker famously said, “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” But to some extent this also misses the mark. Management is about doing things right but leadership is about inspiring others to action. Dwight Eisenhower comes closer to the mark when he said that leadership is “The art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.”
Of course the two concepts are not mutually exclusive. Good managers must also be leaders and good leaders must also manage to some extent. But it’s helpful to remember that leadership is focused on relationships with people while management is focused on defining and controlling process. At least for me this helps to more clearly distinguish between these two important concepts.
Remember, everyone can be a leader even if they are not in a position with the title of director or manager. How do you draw a distinction between leadership and management? Anyone else have thoughts on how to better distinguish between these two important functions?
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