Managers & Leaders Are Not the Same .

 

“Management is about coping with complexity. Leadership is about coping with change.” -Retired Harvard Business School Professor John Kotter

 

Ask yourself, are you a manager or a leader? Or perhaps both? Think they are the same thing? Think again. Although management and leadership are both very necessary for success in business, they are fundamentally different roles. Managers cope with complexity by establishing targets, creating a plan to get there and allocating the resources to do it. Conversely, leaders begin by developing a vision of the future and determining the direction with the strategies necessary to realize their vision. As retired Harvard Business School Professor John Kotter wrote, “managers promote stability while leaders press for change, and only organizations that embrace both sides of that contradiction can thrive in turbulent times.”

Many of today’s companies are over-managed but under led. What does that mean? As John Kotter noted, “Management is about coping with complexity.” Managers help create order in the chaos that can come with business growth and large organizations. “Leadership, by contrast, is about coping with change.” With the exponential growth of technology changing the nature of business at an ever-quickening speed, companies that are nimble and adaptable fare best. In today’s environment, the leader who is content to just “do it like as we always have” or just a little bit better is unlikely to survive. What do the best leaders do? They identify changes in their industries or markets before they happen and then press for change. And some leaders even create the change themselves by forging a new path for their companies and the industries they serve.

While some people are equally skilled at both, most of us are not. Like a giraffe with his head above the tree line, being a leader means we can identify that point in the far distance or future where we want to be that others cannot see. We point in the direction of what we see and we explain what it looks like. Then we count on strong management to help develop the plan of how we get from here to there. As a leader, it is imperative that you understand how to find the right mix of people to help give you and your organization the support to continually look ahead. Likewise, once you have a clear vision, you need the teams in place willing to head out in the direction you pointed. That balance of leadership and management cuts the clearest path to success.