Hi, everyone. I'm Randy Pennington.
This week we answer a question from one of our subscribers.
“What's the difference between management and leadership?”
A subscriber who also works at one of my clients sent me this question via email.
“Randy, a lot of the things that we talk about are targeted toward leaders.
But in my organization, that title is usually reserved for people at the top of the food chain.
And there are a lot of people with titles such as supervisor and team lead and manager
that need this information, too.
So is there a difference between being a manager and being a leader?”
Well, I love this question.
So thank you so much for sending it.
The traditional definition of management activities includes planning, organizing, coordinating,
decision making, and follow up to ensure compliance.
And, it also includes leading - which in this case is defined as managing, motivating and
directing people - which in the old days often meant acting more as a cop than a coach.
So from that perspective, leadership is part of management, and both are done by people
with titles that bestow some sense of authority.
But, organizations and the roles within them are changing.
The traditional roles of management leadership are no longer based on your position.
Rear Admiral Grace Hopper actually provided us a better distinction between management
leadership back in the early 1980s when she said, “You manage things.
You lead people.”
If you follow that logic, management involves planning and decision making, organizing and
coordinating even prioritizing and monitoring all the things in your business.
Leadership, as I said in a previous episode, is the ability to influence the actions and
outcomes of others in a way that delivers positive results.
My friend Mark Sanborn wrote a great book titled You Don't Need a Title to Be a Leader.
He's absolutely correct.
And in today's world, not having the positional power of a title doesn't mean that you also
don't act as a manager.
For instance, your project team might not have anyone with a “management” title on it.
But it still has to manage a number of things while it influences people through effective
leadership.
Mastering the management of all those things like data, schedules, inventory, and projects
is a fundamental expectation for everyone.
The most valuable competency you can have, however, is the ability to influence the actions
and outcomes of others to deliver positive results, even when you have no authority.
And that leadership.
Let's take this is a step further.
Leadership and management are changing immensely even for those people with titles.
First, increasing spans of control, the need to provide autonomy to attract and retain
top talent, more people working remotely, and advances in technology will mean that
more and more of the traditional management responsibilities will be handled automatically
or at least by the person who's doing the work.
Command and Control leadership approaches don't earn you the commitment and discretionary
effort that you need for your team.
Leaders will need to move from cop to coach.
The focus will be less on procedures and more on performance that delivers results.
They share expectations and empower rather than control and direct.
And, the best leaders will challenge the status quo and invest in people to help them grow
rather than treating others as cost to be managed.
Leadership and management used to be defined by the position you held.
Now they're defined by the competencies you master.
The shift is critical for your business.
That's it for this episode. Thanks for watching.
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