Leader or Manager, Which Are You?
How to Lead Without Managing and Manage Without Leading
Pure leadership is just influence. Managers focus on getting things done. Managerial leaders do both.
Some managers show leadership, some don’t. Similarly, some leaders do a lot of managing. There is also pure leadership without management. So, we have pure management, pure leadership and “managerial leadership.”
How to Be a Leader, Not a Manager
Showing leadership means promoting a new direction, challenging the status quo and influencing people to think differently. Contrary to popular belief, leadership does not mean taking charge of a group, even informally, and helping it to reach a goal. That’s managerial leadership. Pure leadership must be restricted to selling the tickets for the journey. It has nothing to do with driving the bus to the destination. Otherwise, we could not say that Martin Luther King, though long dead, is still having a leadership effect on thousands of people. Even when he was alive, he had a leadership impact on the U.S. Supreme Court when they ruled segregation on buses unconstitutional. This is a perfect example of leadership without management because King had no managerial authority, even informally, over the U.S. government. Similarly, when front-line knowledge workers convince their bosses to adopt new ideas, they are showing leadership to senior management, again without any managerial authority. All employees can show leadership in this way.
How to Be a Manager, Not a Leader
Managers focus on getting things done efficiently. But this does not mean that managers have an assembly line mentality. If you are managing educated knowledge workers, such as doctors in a medical clinic, you have to be empowering and supportive. You might not be able to tell them how to do their jobs anyway, but you can hold them accountable for the cost-effective delivery of services. Any decisions the clinic manager makes, say to expand the organization or purchase new equipment, are managerial decisions.
Managerial Leadership
Most managers show some leadership. The conventional view is that executives show leadership in two ways. By using their powers of persuasion, they influence people who report to them to take actions they would not otherwise take. The second way executives show leadership, on this view, is by making decisions that move the organization in new directions. However, we are gradually moving away from this concept of leadership, one based on formal authority. It is becoming increasingly recognized that making such decisions should be considered managerial actions. Managers can only lead by persuading people to act differently, either directly or by example.
We need to move away from the “formal authority” view of leadership because then only those with formal power can show leadership. As leadership becomes ever more knowledge based, we need a concept of leadership based on pure influence so leadership can be shown by anyone with a good idea to promote.
The concept of “managerial leadership” helps to explain how executives can both manage and lead.
