Effective Leadership Versus Effective Management

Throughout life, we will be called to play many roles. Two of the most important work roles relate to that of leader and manager.

"Some leaders cannot manage— some managers cannot lead."

In business and in government, one must be both good at both management and relationship effective as both a manager and a leader. These roles are extremely complex, typically requiring university degree(s) and thousands of hours of practice.

Leadership Vs. Management: They are not the Same

Most people talk as though leadership and management are the same thing. Fundamentally, they are very different. Unfortunately, a lot of people do not understand this.

This was discovered a few years ago when doing on-site training in TQM. As part of a class exercise, participants where asked for a definition of total quality and management. Everyone got total right, there was even good consistency regarding quality. However, when it came to management, participants were all over the the place. There really wasn't any consistent definition.

This confusion extends even into the business schools. In fact, professors tend to lack clarity about the fundamental differences between what a leader does and what a manager does.

One way to understand leadership versus management is to imagine a Venn diagram. Most of the time, the two do not intersect. However, certain activities require both outstanding leadership and management skills. Three examples:

Project manager. One must ably manage the resources associated allocated to the project and while exercising leadership skills to build a strong team.

Delegation. Essentially, one must plan what to do and persuade someone to do it.

Change "Management." If one is putting a new light bulb in the socket, one can management that change. However, real organizational change has both a leadership and a management component.

Leadership Vs Management: Basic Definitions

"One cannot do what one cannot define."

One of the institutions that never got the two confused, was the U.S. military. One person who clearly knew what she was talking about was Grace Hopper. An interesting lady, she started in the Navy Waves in WW II and retired as a rear admiral. One story about her goes:

In the early days of computers, there was a great deal of mechanical parts and relays. One day, her engineers and programmers got into a big argument about whether the software was wrong or whether the hardware was messed up. She went pulled off a back panel and found an insect crawling in the electronics. This lead to the words, “There is a bug in the computer.”

Another saying attributed to her was, "It's better to seek forgiveness, than to ask for permission."