How Leaders Are Different Than Managers (Part II)

In my last blog post, I looked at the basic differences between leaders and managers. In looking at these differences, I argued that managers are concerned primarily with managing processes and creating efficiency, while leaders are concerned primarily with influencing, connecting, equipping and inspiring people to achieve positive end goals. But in order to understand this definition, it is important to break it apart to see the complex set of factors that create these differences. Today's blog post, and those that follow it, will focus on these factors that help us distinguish the roles of a leader from those of a manager.

Factor #1: Manager Seek Stability; Leaders Seek Positive Change

One of the major ways that leaders are different from managers is that leaders actively seek to promote positive disruption in the organization to change it for the better, while it is the job of the manager to promote as much peace, equilibrium, and stability as possible to keep his/her workers functioning at the optimum level of efficiency (Kotter, 1990). As Kouzes and Posner (2003) put it, good leaders are to "challenge the process" to create a better future for their organization.  Thus, while a good manager is focused on today and how to make it the most stable and productive day possible, leaders are focused on tomorrow and how to move his/her people on to the goals that will create positive results down the line.

The appropriate interplay between stable management and adaptive leadership, therefore, can be very contingent on the situation at hand. In times of relative peace, good management is essential to help people continue to do what they do well; but in times of great turmoil, adaptive leadership is key. In such times, the adaptive leader must challenge stakeholders to get outside of their normal comfort zone to look for not only how to solve the problems of today, but build a new tomorrow. As Ronald Heifetz (1994) put it in his book Leadership Without Easy Answers:

In a crisis we tend to look for the wrong kind of leadership. We call for someone with answers, decisions, strength, and a map of the future, someone who knows where we ought to be going--in short, someone who can make hard problems simple...Instead of looking for saviors, we should be calling for leadership that will challenge us to face problems for which there are no simple, painless solutions--problems that require us to learn new ways (p. 2).

For Heifetz (1994), one of the forerunners of adaptive leadership theory, "Adaptive leadership isn't about simple answers, but confronting reality and forming innovative solutions" (p. 22). In being adaptive, then, leaders push their organization to remake the status quo into something better, something more congruent with future realities. This requires that, first and foremost, the leader himself/herself be adaptive--what more recent authors are terming "learning agility" (De Meuse, Dai & Hallenbeck, 2010; Norton, 2010).

But the process of getting followers from the present status quo to the new normal of the future can be an uncomfortable process. As Margaret Wheatley (1992), who, in the early 1990s, sought to meld concepts from chaos theory, quantum physics, and other fields of science with leadership theory, noted:

New understandings of change and disorder have also emerged from chaos theory. Work in this field has led to a new appreciation of the relationship between order and chaos. These two forces are now understood as mirror images, two states that contain the other. A system can descend into chaos and unpredictability, yet within that state of chaos the system is held within boundaries that are well-ordered and predictable. Without the partnering of these two great forces, no change or progress is possible. Chaos is necessary to new creative ordering. (p. 13)

Thus, while the leader must bring a controlled chaos into the organization in order to truly move people on to a positive agenda for the future, it is not easy to find the right balance for how to achieve this in a way that does not cause the system to implode upon itself. As Jim Collins (2001) in his book Good to Great noted, companies who moved from being merely "good" to truly becoming "great" never did so in "one fell swoop;" the process had to be carried out one step at a time, building momentum along the way (p. 14). This fine interplay between chaos and stability, then, is something that requires artful handling, skillful reframing, and the right balance between new ideas and a celebration of the existing stories of the organization (Bolman & Deal, 2013; Gardner & Laskin, 2001). As Lewin's (1951) theory of change so famously put it, the task of the leader is to "unfreeze" the status quo, implement the change, and then "refreeze" the collective consciousness of the organization towards the new reality. As the analogy implies, unfreezing and refreezing a group's mindsets do not happen overnight, and thus it is the job of the leader to constantly be looking for new ways to inject disequilibrium into the system in a positive way that creates the right amount of urgency alongside enough stability so that the people feel that the process is still under control (Kotter, 1996; Heifetz, 1994).

None of this process of change, chaos, and disequilibrium, though, sounds like much fun to the normal employee. And thus we come back to the need for both good management and good leadership within an organization. Employees can only go so far in a given amount of time, and thus it is essential that good managers are in place to help them efficiently manage the processes that are required for the day at hand. At the same time, however, good leadership is essential to create a slow but steady move towards the positive goals of tomorrow.

So we end today's blog post with the realization that good management and good leadership are essential for any organization. But as this first factor in our list of distinctions between management and leadership implies, the roles of the leader and the manager are quite different in an organization. In our next post, we will continue our look at the factors that make these distinctions so very important in the real world.

How Leaders Are Different Than Managers (Part I)

In coming in contact with students, professors, and business people, I am asked quite frequently what the difference is between managers and leaders. For many people that I talk to, it seems that they consider it to be a difference without a distinction. Inevitably, they wonder: is this focus on "leadership" just a fad, or a buzzword conjured up to sound more important than "management?"

The truth is that there are major differences between the two concepts of leadership and management, and this is not just some "fad" that has been created to sell more books (Kotter, 1990). Each of these important constructs represents distinct and unique roles that are vital to an organization. Without one (management), an organization would crumble under the weight of its own inefficiency; and without the other (leadership), the organization would eventually be crushed under the weight of the status quo. Both leadership and management represent qualities that are desperately needed for any organization to truly thrive. And, in many instances, individuals must learn to be both leaders and managers, utilizing the right dose of each depending on the unique demands of each circumstance (see e.g. Burns, 1978; Katz, 1955; Hersey & Blanchard, 1969).

So how should we look at these two concepts? This blog series will focus on this key issue, and will seek to provide a framework for looking at these two distinct, yet interrelated concepts.

While many authors have waxed eloquent on this topic, I believe that a simple analogy might provide a good framework for this discussion. To do this, I want you to think of a semi-trailer truck--one that is a part of a larger fleet of trucks, and is intended to carry an important load to a destination far away. For the manager of this truck, the most important thing is to make sure that this truck achieves its purpose as efficiently as possible. Thus, the manager creates a maintenance schedule to ensure that the truck is in tip-top shape; he seeks out drivers who are competent, experienced, and will do the job right; and he makes sure to create a dispatch system that lets the driver know exactly where to go, what roads to avoid, and what stops to make. In essence, the manager is there to ensure that all of the processes in place (e.g. the dispatch service, maintenance record-keeping, and job placement) are all as efficient as possible. 

On the other hand, the leader of the trucking company has a very different job. While he certainly cares about how each truck is functioning, and whether or not it gets to its destination on time and in good working order, these are not his primary focus. Instead, he is asking questions like: Based on the shifts in demographics that we can see coming in the future, what routes should we create to maximize our chances for success down the line? How can we improve our relationships with clients by not just getting their products there on time, but creating a mutually beneficial engagement process? How can we foster a better working relationship between the many ethnic groups that comprise our workforce and utilize the best of what each has to offer? How should we restructure our company in order to prepare for a catastrophic event such as a natural disaster, epidemic, or financial downturn? And how do we motivate our workers to think outside the box and create new ideas for making the company better? In essence, the job of the leader is influencing, connecting, equipping, and inspiring people for the purpose of achieving positive goals. 

As you can see from this analogy, both the manager and the leader are absolutely vital to the company. If the leader created a new trucking route, but didn't have a manager to implement the change, the results would be disastrous. And the "leader" will likewise have to don his "management" hat quite frequently in order to supervise the day-to-day operations of the company. As situations change, each executive in the company will have to use the right amount of each skill set--both leadership and management--as appropriate.

So based on this analysis, we are left with a simple definition of the difference between leadership and management: Managers are concerned primarily with managing processes and creating efficiency, while Leaders are concerned primarily with influencing, connecting, equipping and inspiring people to achieve positive end goals.

In the next segment of this series, we will break down this definition into its elements, and look at the factors that play a part in creating this important distinction.