Leading people is hard, so managing people is probably the least all newly promoted employee/supervisors can do. It’s a given for any leader to start managing employees first: making sure everyone’s crossing out things on their to-do list, hitting their goals, and taking their breaks at the right time. Crossing that bridge, however, is something that not a lot of managers can do.
However, by dissecting what the real experts have to say about leadership and management, maybe we can learn a thing or two about what really makes a leader and draw the line between leaders and managers. Utilizing research from the Economic Times and the Wall Street Journal, we list the qualities that define a leader and a manager according to three leading management consultants in the country:
A manager is all about keeping tabs on employees. Management consultant and author Peter Drucker once wrote that the job of managers “is to maintain control over people by helping them develop their own assets.” It’s a pretty deodorized statement if you ask us, but its implications are clear: being a manager is all about control. Managers had to stick to the plan and the status quo. They are also more about executing upper management’s orders and plans and keep the whole team’s goal aligned with the company goal.
A leader has the courage to stand up to management. UniversityNow founder and CEO Gene Wade says a leader focuses more on what the tasks are and why they should be done, while the manager is more focused on how the task will be accomplished and when it will be done. Wade says that to get the answers to “what and “why,” the person in charge should be able to determine the root causes of these things, which sometimes involve questioning the decisions of superiors. "This means that they're able to stand up to upper management when they think something else needs to be done for the company," Wade told the Economic Times.
A leader inspires growth and all the good things in his or her employees; a manager focuses on the system. Warren Bennis wrote in his 1989 book “On Becoming a Leader” that a leader innovates, while a manager administers existing rules. He also said that a leader maintains (again, it’s all about having control), while the leader develops each and every one’s potential. The manager focuses on impacting the bottom line, while the leader is open to changes and possibilities.
Sources:
http://www.businessinsider.com/3-things-that-separate-leaders-from-managers-2012-9
http://www.meditec.com/blog/
http://guides.wsj.com/management/developing-a-leadership-style/what-is-the-difference-between-management-and-leadership/http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-04-13/news/38511352_1_leader-manager-gene-wade
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