Blog Post: Leadership and Management: Are there key differences? If so, what are they?

Leaders are the cheerleaders of a business. The essence of leadership means inspiring a group to come together for a common goal. Leaders motivate, console and work with people to keep them bonded and eager to move forward. That means setting a direction, communicating it to everyone who will listen (and probably many who won't) and keeping people psyched when times get tough.

Managers are the quarterbacks of a business. They establish protocols, create rules and operating procedures, and put into place incentive programs and the like. Management, however, is about the business, not the people; although, the people are critically important as a way of getting the work done.

Most business executives and owners have a mix of management and leadership skills. Both skill sets are necessary to run a successful business. Leadership skills provide the direction and vision while management skills provide the systems that let a company grow with success.

By definition, managers have subordinates and leaders have followers.  While many organizational leaders do have subordinates, it’s only occurs because they are also managers.

Management vs. Leadership

Management: Function – Task Oriented

• Planning

• Evaluating

• Budgeting

• Facilitating

Leadership: Relationship – Behavior Oriented

• Motivating

• Selecting Talent

• Coaching

• Building Trust

To “manage” means to make certain that schedules, costs and outcomes occur as planned.

To “lead” means to model behaviors that are consistent with the company’s values, guiding principles, mission and vision AND to actively listen to other’s, mentor junior level personnel and to continuously build relationships/partnerships throughout their respective industry and beyond.

For further information on the core differences between management and leadership, please consult the attached graph.  In addition, to find out if you are a leader within your organization or a manager, please take this leadership self test: http://www.schulersolutions.com/leadership_self_test.html