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 |
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. If an organisation is run effectively, leadership and management will exist in tandem.
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.
Mindset can also have a powerful effect on the success of a leader, Understanding Emotional Contagion can be a tool to success.
This article was originally published on nextgeneration.ie
Featured Image Credits: Pixabay
