Are You A Leader or a Manager?

Or perhaps a bit of both.

Manager and leader. Labels that are used so frequently and often interchangeably. But are they actually the same thing? And can you do one without the other?

Perhaps you have a well-formed view on what the difference or similarities are between someone who leads and someone who manages well.

But if you’re not entirely clear, you’re not alone.

Debate still reigns within academia and business (and in businesses) about what the difference really is. And what the difference should be.

On an individual level, that can mean it’s difficult to know what’s expected and whether you’ve got the balance right.

With that in mind, here are five simple exercises to help you reflect on what ‘leadership’ and ‘management’ really mean, to you and to those around you.

Meantime if you haven’t already, you know what to do:

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Think: Take a moment and complete these two sentences as concisely as you can.

1. A leader is someone who…

2. A manager is someone who…

Write them down. And then reflect.

• What would your team write if asked the same? What about the rest of your Board or leadership team?

• How similar or different do you think the words and sentiment would be?

List: Think about the five most important things that a leader should do (in your opinion). Now think about the top three things that a manager should do.

• What % of your time and energy do you currently allocate to activities in the ‘leader’ list and what % of your time do you allocate to the ‘manager’ activities?

• What would you like it to be?

• What would your team say if you asked them to do the same exercise?

  

Reflect: Herminia Ibarra, in her Financial Times piece entitled When a leader is not a manager and other modern myths, describes the difference between the two labels:

“As with most simple but powerful notions, the dichotomy is part caricature, part resonant truth. We have come to use it as a shorthand to distinguish the noble from the slavish, the outstanding from the ordinary, the good from the bad.

Look closely inside any high-performing company.. and you will find leaders who manage and managers who lead.”

Take a moment and think about your leaders of the past and present:

• Have you been managed by someone who didn’t lead?

• Or have you had a leader who didn’t manage?

• What did you feel, observe and notice? What can you learn from that?

Read: “Business leaders have much more in common with artists than they do with managers”. What can you take from the perspective in this piece below?

Scale: There’s a famous quote, attributed to many a leadership thinker that too many organizations today are ‘over-managed and under-led’. Look back at your responses in the first two exercises.

• What balance exists in your organisation right now?

• What do you need more of or less of?

• What culture shift would that result in?

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Last Week’s Issue: Take a deep dive into the lesser-known ego in Is Your Ego Holding You Back

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