MANAGEMENT VS. LEADERSHIP

The concepts of management and leadership are recurring themes throughout this workbook. I have chosen to use the word management to describe anything that relates to the control and direction of tasks, events, and processes, and leadership for anything that relates to the control and direction of people. On that basis, leadership and management encompass different but overlapping elements. It is possible to be good at one but not the other. It is, however, also possible to be good at both disciplines at the same time.

As a manager, you are typically involved in scheduling work, delegating tasks, coordinating effort and resources, monitoring and guiding progress, building teams, and appealing to rational thinking. As a leader, however, your role is to inspire people, explain goals, share the vision, provide focus, be a role model, monitor morale, create a positive team feeling, and unleash potential.

Field Marshal William Slim elegantly explained the difference between leadership and management in the following way: “Leadership is of the spirit, compounded of personality and vision. Its practice is an art. Management is of the mind, more a matter of accurate calculations, statistics, methods, timetables, and routine. Its practice is a science”.

One of the biggest differences between managers and leaders is the way they motivate people who work for them. Managers are in a position of authority, and their subordinates largely do as they are told because they get a reward (or a salary) for doing so. Leaders see their role quite differently and typically offer more creative opportunities when it comes to motivating staff. Leaders focus on inspiring people and on giving credit to others. They focus on the overall vision and end goal and on how they can best engage and serve others so that they in turn feel inspired and motivated to contribute to the vision.

Leaders tend to have followers rather than subordinates. They do not tell people what to do; that would not inspire them to follow. People follow because they feel inspired and because they want to contribute, not because they are told to.

Many associate the word leader with a particular role, such as the CEO of a major company. But leadership is not a function of what you do or what your job title is; rather, it is a function of your personal capabilities. Leaders can be found in many guises and in all walks of life; many parents, for instance, are leaders.

We will be examining the concept of leadership throughout this workbook and will assess what you can do to actively incorporate some of the most important qualities of leadership into the way you interact with your team and project stakeholders.