THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT
Are you leading or managing? As John Kotter once said, "Management is about coping with complexity, while leadership is about coping with change." In this blog post, we're exploring the differences between these two critical roles. Let's dive into the nuances and discover how each contributes uniquely to achieving team greatness!
At Boundless, we believe a title doesn’t make you a leader. We believe if you have influence over even ONE person – you are a leader. So first and foremost, we believe everyone has the potential to be a leader because leadership is about influence. Now do we believe everyone is a successful, healthy, impactful leader?
NOPE. It’s our job to walk alongside leaders and coach them up to be impactful leaders though.
However, far too often we work with clients and find Leaders operating with management skill sets and are confused and frustrated on why they aren’t getting the results they want. On the other hand, we also see Managers who are overseeing a team but lack the necessary leadership skills that will bolster their team’s innovation and performance and help their team to trust and believe in them more as their manager.
Defining Leadership and Management?
What is Leadership?
Leadership is more than a title—it's about inspiring, guiding, and influencing others.
John C. Maxwell nails it: "Leadership is not about titles, positions, or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another."
Leadership sets the tone for organizational success by fostering innovation, resilience, and unity among teams. Effective leaders embody key traits that inspire and empower others to reach their full potential.
10 Key Characteristics that Distinguish Impactful Leadership
Visionary: Great leaders have a clear vision of where they want to go and how to get there. They can see the big picture and set strategic goals to guide their team.
Inspirational: Leaders inspire and motivate their team to reach their full potential. They create an environment where people feel valued and driven to contribute their best. Simon Sinek notes, "Leadership is not about being in charge. It is about taking care of those in your charge."
Integrity: Trustworthiness and honesty are foundational to effective leadership. Leaders with integrity earn the respect and trust of their team, leading by example and doing what they say they will do. Warren Bennis states, "Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality."
Empathy: Understanding and connecting with others on an emotional level is crucial. Empathetic leaders can better support their team, fostering a positive and inclusive workplace culture. Brené Brown says, "Empathy is simply listening, holding space, withholding judgment, emotionally connecting, and communicating that incredibly healing message of 'You’re not alone.'"
Decisiveness: Effective leaders make timely decisions, even when faced with uncertainty. They analyze information, weigh options, and commit to a course of action, demonstrating confidence and resolve.
Accountability: Leaders take responsibility for their actions and the outcomes of their decisions. They hold themselves and their team accountable, creating a culture of ownership and continuous improvement.
Adaptability: In a fast-changing world, adaptability is key. Leaders must be flexible and open to new ideas, able to pivot and adjust strategies as needed to navigate challenges and seize opportunities.
Communication: Clear, concise, and transparent communication is vital. Leaders must be able to convey their vision, expectations, and feedback effectively, ensuring everyone is aligned and informed.
Collaboration: Great leaders foster a collaborative environment, encouraging teamwork and leveraging the strengths of their team members. They know that the best outcomes are achieved when diverse perspectives come together.
Continuous Learning: Leaders are committed to personal and professional growth. They seek out new knowledge, skills, and experiences to stay ahead and lead their team more effectively.
Now notice, friend - Visionary is the first item on the list above. That wasn’t an accident. Vision is ESSENTIAL for a leader to excel at in order to inspire, encourage, plan, adapt and build momentum impactfully. Vision is also a distinct aspect of leadership that is not as necessary for management.
But WHAT does vision actually mean? Let’s talk about it.
In a nutshell, VISION helps a leader provide:
Clear Direction: Vision gives a clear path and purpose. It aligns everyone’s efforts toward long-term goals. As John C. Maxwell says, "A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way."
Inspiration: A strong vision motivates and inspires your team, creating excitement and a sense of purpose.
Smart Decisions: Vision acts as a decision-making guide, ensuring choices align with your goals and values.
Creates Meaning: Vision creates meaning and builds momentum for leaders, customers, donors to emotionally gravitate towards which means they’re more likely to be invested in where you’re leading them.
What is Management?
Effective management is essential for the success of any organization. Managers play a critical role in ensuring that teams operate smoothly, resources are utilized efficiently, and goals are met.
Here are 10 Key Characteristics of Exceptional Management:
Time Management: Managers excel at prioritizing tasks and managing their time and their team's time efficiently to meet deadlines and objectives.
Resource Allocation: They skillfully allocate resources, ensuring that people, budget, and materials are used effectively to achieve the best results.
Performance Monitoring: Managers consistently track and assess team performance, providing regular evaluations and constructive feedback to ensure continuous improvement.
Process Improvement: They are always looking for ways to improve processes and workflows, aiming to increase efficiency and reduce waste.
Technical Proficiency: A good manager possesses a strong understanding of the technical aspects of their field, which helps in making informed decisions and providing credible guidance.
Risk Management: They identify potential risks and develop strategies to mitigate them, ensuring smooth project execution and avoiding potential pitfalls.
Conflict Resolution: Managers are adept at resolving conflicts within the team, maintaining a harmonious work environment.
Customer Focus: They prioritize customer satisfaction, ensuring that their team delivers high-quality products or services that meet or exceed customer expectations.
Budget Management: Managers are skilled at managing budgets, ensuring that projects are completed within financial constraints and resources are utilized optimally.
Operational Efficiency: They focus on streamlining operations and reducing redundancies to maximize productivity and effectiveness.
As you can see, management skills are much more geared towards processes and efficiency whereas leadership is focused more on casting vision and creating influence.
The Differences & Overlap Between Leadership and Management
Where They Are Different and Where They Overlap?
Leaders and Managers need one another and in fact COMPLIMENT each other’s goals, strengths and responsibilities.
Harmonizing Vision and Execution: While leaders set the vision, managers devise the actionable steps to achieve it. This synergy ensures that lofty goals are translated into practical, achievable tasks.
Balancing Change and Stability: Leaders drive innovation and change, pushing the organization to evolve and grow. Managers, on the other hand, provide the stability needed to implement these changes without disrupting the operational flow. Together, they create a balanced environment where new ideas can flourish within a stable framework.
Fostering Development and Accountability: Leaders inspire personal and professional growth, encouraging their teams to reach their highest potential. Managers hold the team accountable, ensuring that everyone is aligned with the organizational goals and standards. This dynamic fosters a culture of continuous improvement and accountability.
Enhancing Team Dynamics: Leaders build strong relationships and motivate the team through their vision and charisma. Managers, with their organizational skills, ensure that the team's efforts are well-coordinated and efficient. This collaboration enhances team dynamics, leading to higher morale and productivity.
By recognizing the importance of both leaders and managers and understanding how their roles complement each other, organizations can harness their combined strengths to achieve extraordinary success.
The fusion of visionary leadership and efficient management creates a powerful engine for an impactful culture, growth, innovation, and sustained achievement.
Skills Required for Both Roles
We’ve discussed quite a bit of differences between a Leader and a Manager BUT we cannot forget that that there are skill sets that are required for BOTH Leaders and Managers to be successful.
Communication Skills
For Managers: Effective communication is crucial for managers to ensure clarity, alignment, and efficiency within their teams. It involves providing clear instructions, regular feedback, and transparent updates to keep operations running smoothly. Managers who excel in communication empower their teams, translating organizational goals into actionable plans and fostering trust among team members. They bridge the gap between strategic vision and daily tasks, ensuring everyone understands their roles and works towards shared objectives.
For Leaders: Leaders rely on effective communication to inspire, influence, and guide their teams towards a common vision. Beyond conveying information, leaders articulate a compelling vision, motivate through inspirational messages, and navigate challenges with clarity and empathy. They use communication to build relationships, foster a culture of trust, and empower innovation. By mastering communication, leaders align the organization, engage their workforce, and drive sustainable growth in today's competitive environment.
Decision-making
For Managers: Effective decision-making is vital for managers to ensure smooth operations, resolve conflicts, and optimize team productivity. They make timely choices that align with organizational goals, fostering accountability and proactive problem-solving within their teams.
For Leaders: Leadership hinges on strategic decision-making that shapes organizational direction and inspires teams. Leaders analyze data, consider long-term implications, and empower innovation to drive growth and adaptability. Their decisions rally teams around a shared vision and navigate uncertainties with confidence.
Problem-solving
For Managers: Effective problem-solving is crucial for managers to maintain productivity, resolve daily challenges, and foster team cohesion. They identify issues, implement solutions, and optimize workflows to achieve organizational goals efficiently.
For Leaders: Leaders have to make big decisions that carry the weight of everyone they serve. Leadership relies on strategic problem-solving to navigate complex challenges, drive growth, and inspire innovation. Leaders analyze issues, innovate solutions, and guide teams through uncertainty with clarity and vision, fostering a culture of resilience and continuous improvement.
Can Someone be Both a Leader and a Manager?
At Boundless, we believe that regardless of what your official title is – if you have influence over 1 person - YOU ARE A LEADER. Though your job title may be as a manager you are overseeing, inspiring, and encouraging your team to get their job done well (and hopefully creating a safe, trusting and engaging environment to do that in!).
This makes YOU a leader.
For leaders who carry that title in their organization, our biggest council to you is grow in empathy and to seek understanding.
Be curious about what your managers have to face and grow in authenticity and compassion so your managers continue to be loyal to you and perform well. Check out our blog on Authentic Leadership to learn more.
5 Pieces of Advice for Managers to Enhance their Leadership Skills
Seek Mentorship and Coaching: Mentorship and coaching are critical for leadership development. According to a survey by Harvard Business Review, 84% of CEOs and 74% of CFOs received mentorship, underscoring its importance in shaping leadership capabilities. Successful leaders spend time and money on coaches and consultants to make THEM BETTER! You are worth the investment of expanding your potential.
Take on Leadership Projects: Engaging in leadership projects enhances career progression, fosters personal growth, and demonstrates a commitment to senior leaders that you are willing to get the job done.
Develop Emotional Intelligence: Emotional intelligence significantly impacts job performance. Research by TalentSmart reveals that emotional intelligence accounts for 58% of job performance and 90% of top performers possess high emotional intelligence.
Continuous Learning: Continuous learning is crucial for leadership effectiveness. When you invest in your growth or intentionally pursue learning, you are showing that you are pursuing your fullest potential and impact. People want to learn! They want to develop! Interestingly, LinkedIn's Workplace Learning Report highlights that 94% of employees would stay longer at companies investing in their career development.
Receive Feedback: Hate to break it to you - but avoiding asking for feedback or receiving feedback poorly are signs of a lack of maturity. View feedback as an investment into your future self. Use feedback as an opportunity to enhance yourself or seek out a trusted coach (Like Lauren Bronson Petrous) to help you process feedback in a healthy way. This will ultimately serve your productivity, expand your potential and increase your capacity and maturity as a human and as a leader.
4 Tips to Help Leaders Better Support their Managers & Learn Management Skillsets in the Process:
1. Empathize and Seek Perspective: Leaders are often so focused on creating the vision and the impact that they can often forget to treat their managers as humans. Humans that are doing their best and are stuck in the middle between leadership, customers and frontline employees. Leaders, your Managers have A LOT to MANAGE. You will become a better leader when you grow in empathy and seek to understand the perspectives of your managers.
This is one of our favorite images that shows Managers stuck in the middle of the canyon being pulled in every direction. Copyright, Root inc.,: https://www.rootinc.com/strategy-visual-story-dialogue-strategy-2/canyon/
2. Respect the Power of Your Manager: Managerial involvement significantly impacts employee engagement. Gallup's research[1] indicates that managers account for 70% of variance in employee engagement scores.
3. Delegate Effectively: Effective delegation enhances productivity. According to Harvard Business Review, [2] effective delegation can free up 30% of a manager's time, allowing them to focus on strategic priorities.
4. Communication is Everything: Effective communication drives organizational success. HANDS DOWN. We could list dozens and dozens of quotes by the most successful people in the world on the importance of working at effective communication skills. Here are three:
“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” – George Bernard Shaw, Nobel Prize-winning playwright
“Nothing in life is more important than the ability to communicate effectively.” – Gerald R. Ford, former United States president
“To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others.” – Tony Robbins, author, speaker, coach
5. Execution: It’s easy for leaders to not grasp the reality of what they’re telling their Managers to actually execute on. Details, timelines, managing people and resources are responsibilities Managers have to ace in order to make you happy. As leaders, getting involved in the execution side of initiatives (at least once in a while) will increase your capacity of understanding, earn you more respect from your Managers and help you as a leader develop in execution skills you may have left dormant for a hot minute.
At Boundless & Co., we firmly believe that leadership transcends titles. Whether you formally manage a team or influence just one person, you wield leadership because you wield influence.
Our mission is to empower every individual to realize their leadership potential because leadership is fundamentally about influence. However, true success and impact as a leader require guidance and development.
We often encounter clients who possess strong management skills but struggle to achieve desired outcomes. Conversely, some managers oversee teams effectively but lack the leadership acumen to inspire innovation and elevate team performance.
Investing in coaching and personal development is pivotal for your next level up and we’d LOVE to be the ones to partner with you to get there. Book a complimentary Discovery Call and let’s see what kind of impact we can make together.