Differences between Managers and Leaders
Can Management Development Lead to Better Organizational Leadership?
Apr 21, 2009
Many organizations are now recognizing that one of the key resource shortages they will encounter in the next decade will be that of leadership. Infrastructure can be built, “soft” skills can be taught, technology can be outsourced, but developing leaders is a much more complex undertaking.
Traditionally, organizations have operated on the premise that an adequate amount of management training will ultimately result in managers becoming leaders. But adding different layers to management training has proven insufficient to develop leaders, mostly because the skill requirements for managers versus leaders are very different. By adding new complexities to traditional management training programs, organizations have failed to create leaders- they have simply created stronger managers.
Abraham Zaleznik’s 2004 Harvard Business Review article “Managers and Leaders: Are They Different?” on the differences between leaders and managers has highlighted the need for organizations to focus on leadership development as a distinct, stand alone activity, rather than as an add-on to management training.
Power and Control in Organizations
One of the most significant differences between managers and leaders is how they exercise control. In the past, managers have exercised their authority through three sources:
- Job title- A manager’s job title has traditionally been the most critical source of power and respect in organizations. However, things are changing. More and more organizations are removing entire job levels and moving towards a flat hierarchical structure. The trend of switching to flat hierarchical structures in an attempt to create equality among employees has helped in breaking the “boss” and the “worker” barriers.
- Functional expertise- Managers can no longer claim to have the best experience in a certain area. Employees at all levels have access to countless educational choices, state of the art technology, online research on any given topic, and job opportunities that allow them to quickly get the required experience to excel at their job. And, while experience does improve one’s ability to make good decisions, past experience alone needs to be used with caution, particularly in today’s unprecedented economic and social environment.
- Access to confidential information - In the past managers could control and restrict the information flow, using it to their advantage. But, technological advances have changed information accessibility and usage.
With changes in how organizational hierarchies, expertise, and information are viewed by employees, the real control has to come through the way leadership is applied in organizations. There is a big difference between how managers and leaders motivate their people, and this sets the tone for other aspects of the leader- follower relationship.
Managers Have Subordinates, Leaders Have Followers
While managers have subordinates, who mostly do as they are told, leaders surround themselves with followers. Followers are quite different than subordinates:
- They follow because they want to, not because they have to.
- They are inspired and motivated by the leader.
- They respect the leader for who they are, not for their job title.
Finally, leaders are capable of inspiring people through trust, not fear. They walk the talk, and believe in coaching others into becoming future leaders themselves. Nietzsche’ famous words, “This is my way, what is yours?” capture the very essence of leaders’ dedication to developing others.
