In any organisation there are leaders and there are managers. But how often are these the same person? Always? Never? You may just be confused by the question: after all, aren’t they the same thing? Not exactly. Here we explore what makes leadership distinct from management, and why understanding the difference is important for achieving your career goals.
Is there any difference between leadership and management?
Leadership and management are often used interchangeably. Perhaps this is due to an implicit assumption that one concept by definition contains the other (all managers are, by definition, leaders, or vice versa.) This may be true in some cases, but it’s not true as a rule. To see this, consider whether a person can be one without the other: can you be a leader without being a manager, or be a manager without being a leader? It only takes imagining a team member who is admired and followed despite not being formally in charge, or a David Brent-like manager who fails to inspire to see that management and leadership don’t always go hand-in-hand.
Confusion between the two may be due to the slipperiness of definitions in general; creating one sentence that captures everything important about a concept isn’t easy. As Shamas-ur-Rehman Toor and George Ofori argue in their paper on the question at hand1, “there is no commonly agreed upon definition or set of descriptions of leadership.” This fact makes the task of distinguishing it from management (for which Toor and Ofori do see definitional consensus) somewhat more difficult. Nonetheless, there are some essential qualities that make leadership distinct from management, even without a solid definition for the former.
What makes leadership different from management?What makes leadership and management distinct?
In his article titled “Leadership Versus Management: What’s the Difference?,” James Kotterman 2 forms a contrast by explaining four areas where the focus of leadership and management appear to diverge. These are as follows:
Vision Establishment
The vision of where an organisation is going, as well as the broad strategy of how to get there is the purview of leaders, whereas managers are in charge of the details: creating budgets, plans and processes. While the leader takes a passionate view towards the vision, a manager doesn’t, taking instead an impersonal approach to both the vision and the goals it engenders.
Human Development and Networking
A leader is more hands-off than a manager. Leaders align the organisation with the vision, and are the main point of inspiration and communication for that vision, but they’re not the one doing the day-to-day tasks — that’s the role of the manager. For managers, staffing, organisational structure, delegating responsibility and authority, and establishing policies is what’s most important.
Vision Execution
This is where the starkest difference between the two occurs. Managers are the people primarily involved with execution. They control processes, identify and solve problems, and monitor the results of their employees. Leaders, on the other hand, fulfil a broader role. Motivation and inspiration is their key responsibility, and they do so in a way that helps employees overcome their problems and strive forward in step with the company’s vision.
Vision Outcome
The manager is expected to provide consistent, predictable results to key stakeholders, whereas leaders instead promote new ideas and dramatic changes. In this sense, the role of the manager is more conservative, whereas a leader is more progressive.
Why is the difference between leadership and management important?
While Kotterman’s taxonomy is quite binary, it shouldn’t be understood so literally as saying leaders can only do this or that, and vice versa; it’s more of a sketch to show general differences, not specific definitional rules. That said, the reason any distinction is important to make in the first place is because organisations need to be clear about where they might have gaps in their staff. A business needs both leaders and managers because they do different things. To reduce each concept down to a single word would be to say that leadership is about direction and management is about execution; both are indispensable, but if an organisation isn’t clear about the difference, it can be tough to see whether both kinds of people are present in an organisation. Knowing what skills are more important for each is helpful when choosing who gets a promotion, and who to bring on board. As Toor and Ofori observe, “leadership involves power by influence and management involves power by position.” Both kinds of influence are helpful for a business getting things done.
What’s important to remember is, despite their differences, leadership and management are not mutually exclusive traits; you can be both and you can develop your abilities in each area. Demonstrating both on your resume, however, is easier said than done. Sure, you can list your experience, but that doesn’t always prove your specific management and leadership skills. How, for instance, can you show you’re effective at empowering others? Or that you’re capable of driving strategic results? The answer is with one of Deakin University’s professional practice micro-credentials. The experience you’ve gained over your career is professionally assessed, with success resulting in the award of a university-level credential you can put on your CV. A rigorous appraisal process gives potential employers peace of mind that you really can do what you say you can — a factor that can give you a leg up when going for that dream job.
To learn more about Deakin’s professional practice credentials, get in touch with a member of the team today.
1 Toor, Shamas-ur-Rehman & Ofori, George. (2008). Leadership versus Management: How They Are Different, and Why. Leadership and Management in Engineering. 8, 10
2 Kotterman, James. (2006). Leadership Versus Management: What’s the Difference? The Journal for Quality and Participation. 29, 2