LEAD Blog
Blog Home
Post Categories
Community
General
Leadership
|
|
The Difference Between Leading and Managing
By: Tony Pantello | May 16, 2010
 There's an age-old debate on the difference between leadership and management tasks. And the argument is valid. Each requires a distinct set of professional skill sets. But contrary to popular belief, both are equally important for an organization's or community's success. An exploration into their differences indicates why this is the case.
The Difference
Warren Bennis, author of
Becoming a Leader, describes the difference between leadership and management better than I ever could. He says this:
"There is a profound difference between management and leadership, and both are important. To manage means to bring about, to accomplish, to have charge of or responsibility for. Leading is influencing, guiding in a direction, course, action, and opinion. The distinction is crucial."
Do you see it? A leader primarily empowers, influences, inspires, and directs
people. Leaders concern themselves with answering the
"what" and the
"why". A manager in turn facilitates
projects, systems, and other administrations. They seek to answer the
"how" and the
"when".
The Implication for Leaders
 While this distinction is helpful, it still doesn't explain why leaders or managers should seek to understand and value both sets of tasks. It doesn't explain why a leadership course like LEAD would focus partly on project management. This fact however, does:
In order to realize a shared organizational or community vision, both leadership and management tasks are required and are dependent on each other. They may be vastly different, but they are both necessary and complimentary. A lack in either can create problems.
Think of it this way. A leader could articulate a vision and inspire others to get on board with it, but if no one facilitates the exact steps and details it takes to make a vision become reality, then the vision will never matriculate. Conversely, if managers have no inspiration and a foggy direction for their projects, they will have a hard time making decisions and their work will be somewhat passionless and unfocused.
To be a competent leader means to recognize and value the interplay of both leadership and management tasks. It means to humbly recognize that if you don't have the skills and knowledge to carry out tasks, projects, and details, then you need to surround yourself with people who do. In addition to improving one's project management abilities, it is for this reason and realization that I think a session on project management is worthwhile to include in a leadership training course.
Leadership and management aren't tasks at odds. Rather, they are just two pieces of the puzzle that are dependent on each other to achieve a collective vision.
Comments
There don't appear to be any comments on this post yet.
Add a Comment
|
