Leading vs Management: Are You a Leader or a Manager?

Vadim Slavin
Jul 10, 2017 · 2 min read
Sometimes this is what leadership feels like

You are a responsible executive: you have a mission, objectives, and a team to execute this mission. You have a solid management style which has brought you to where you are today: yet another mission, yet another team. Are you a manager or a leader? Do you know the difference?

Silicon valley has coined the phrase “getting shit done”. It implies a razor-sharp focus, a ruthlessness of execution in the presence of obstacles, a brute-force method of applying every means possible. As the person in charge, this means you are in the position of power to employ all your available resources — no matter what the long term costs are. Few of us are strategic enough to understand the implications of such brute-force approach. Question is, is there a better way to lead?

In my conversations with leads, executives, and their subordinates — a few common themes of distinction have emerged between leadership and management.

Manager: organizes, coordinates, explains, assigns responsibility, solves problems, oversees, anticipates and mitigates challenges, evangelizes, mediates disagreements, provides authority on the overall direction, pushes to take risks, plans tactically, goal oriented.

Leader: inspires, suggests, observes, educates, listens, inspires responsibility, empowers to take on risks, asks questions, encourages, guides resolution of disagreements, provides a direction, plans strategically, mission oriented.

Which one are you? Which one would you want to work for?

One of my early mentors told me that his role was simply to remove obstacles to make his team do its job, to make each individual contributor be their best. Which role do you think he had in our organization?

Often times we forget that people do not have loyalty to organizations, or missions — they have loyalty to other people only. The only true way to motivate people and win their loyalty is to provide them a rewarding* responsibility. While the notion of rewarding* is very subjective, one aspect of such reward tends to be universal: ownership of a responsibility and control over their work.

Regardless of how each of us is motivated (more on this later), we are at our best when we are appreciated and cared for. We tend to assign loyalty to those that have our interests first, ahead of the company mission or profits. We follow those that lead, not manage.

So which are you? A good manager or simply a leader?

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