The Real Difference Between Leadership and Management

What is the difference between leadership and management? I should know: I have written both How to Lead and How to Manage.

But I recently discovered the definitive answer: leadership sells better than management. There are lots of people out there who want to be leaders, but they might be better managers.

In truth, management needs to sell better than leadership. For every leader who dreams of changing the world, you need a hundred managers who can turn the dream into reality.

But we have all been taught that leadership is sexy and that management is boring. So what is leadership and management?
Leadership is the art of taking people where they would not have gone by themselves. That means there are plenty of people with grand titles, like CEO, who are in leadership positions but are not leading.

They are simply moving with the momentum of the organisation: they are following the random walk of history from the past to the future.

But, there are also plenty of people who do not have leadership positions who are leading. The last man out of the World Trade Center on 9/11, who led many people to safety, was William Rodriguez. He was a janitor. Leadership is about what you do, not about your title.

Management is the art of making things happen through other people. You may be a genius who solves all the toughest challenges in your department; you may be the salesmen or broker who delivers the most business. But you are not managing.

Managing is means influencing, persuading, coaching, directing, getting the right team, enlisting the right support, finding the right resources so that the right things can happen. Think of sports teams: players may be brilliant and highly paid, but they rarely make good managers.

The manager has a completely different job from the player. Great players rarely make great managers; great managers were often journeymen players.

Both leadership and management involve change. If you simply administer the status quo, you are an administrator. Great leaders make great change, which can often lead to great chaos. That is where the managers come in. Leaders may lead the revolution, but the managers will rule the world before and after the revolution.

(Pic: TheBusyBrain cc2.0)