top of page

Management vs Leadership

I gave a talk at UberConfX last week. A couple minutes into the talk, a participant raised his hand to ask why I kept using the terms Manager and Leader interchangeably.


Did I think they were the same thing?


I quickly responded, “No” and posed the same question back to the audience. It resulted in a wonderful ad-hoc discussion on the difference between these two roles.


Here is my tldr reflection:

Management - doing things right

Leadership - doing the right things


Management is about coping with complexity

  • Planning and budgeting

  • Organizing and people staffing

  • Must be fail-safe and risk-free

  • Helping normal people who behave in normal ways complete routine jobs day after day

Leadership is about coping with change

  • Setting a direction

  • Motivating and inspiring

  • Articulating the organization's vision

  • Involving people in deciding how to achieve the vision

  • Giving people a sense of empowerment and control

  • Recognizing and rewarding success


Leadership compliments management, but it does not replace it.




 
 
 

Comments


Commenting on this post isn't available anymore. Contact the site owner for more info.
bottom of page