Leaders and Managers — we need them both, preferably in one person.
Back in the day, when I was offered opportunities to lead engineering teams, I would politely decline stating that management is not on my career path. I had a naive definition of an engineering manager based on my own experiences and considered them a structural necessity with little value-add since process, control and communication was their primary competency. I developed a mild aversion for managers. I aspired to be a leader since I found them visionary, bold and trailblazing with galvanizing and inspiring spirit.
Ten years ago, I enrolled in Theories of Leadership course offered by Marvin Zonis, Professor Emeritus at University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. The classroom discussion on this HBR paper from Zaleznik contrasting and comparing managers and leaders profoundly changed the course of my subsequent leadership journey. Since then I have had the great privilege to learn and practice this blend of leadership at Facebook and now at Netflix.
I found my course paper that I turned in ten years ago summarizing Zaleznik a refreshing read and I am reprinting it here for aspiring leaders and managers to build their own blend of leadership management.
Leaders and managers are essentially two sides of the same coin and the notion that leaders are not good managers and vice versa has increasingly become less meaningful. Leaders and managers are crossing into the traditionally held territory of one another to deliver the maximum impact. Interestingly, many senior executives have absorbed this view into a strategic advantage and have started cultivating the best qualities of leaders and managers at early level and middle level ranks in their organizations.
The following coursework illustrates the traditional roles managers and leaders play in a well functioning organization. It then attempts to exemplify the distinct skill-set both groups employ in maneuvering an organization through both good and tumultuous times. The answer concludes by construing that thriving organizations blend the best of both managers and leaders in their hierarchical ranks.
Leaders and managers are two essential pillars of an organization. They carry out the roles and responsibilities that are not only complementary but also critical for the smooth functioning and steering of an organization. Managers are perceived to be seeking organizational stability and control and complying with a predefined structure and processes. Leaders are perceived to be playing the role of a cheerleader and are responsible for injecting passion, catalyzing creativity and instilling vision.
The conventional wisdom has been that the leaders and managers work in opposite directions. Managers emphasize on processes that are tried and tested thus killing imagination, suppressing creativity and stretching ethical behavior in response. The energy in managerial leadership is focused on goals and resources, organizational structure and stability, controlling and balancing power as well as on processes and people. The managerial goals are born out of necessities rather than passion or a desire for change. Persistence is the central tenet of managerial leadership and not courage, bravery or heroism. Managers are also believed to be tough-minded and hard-working with great analytical skills but are less tolerant to the idea of pushing the envelope or bending the framework. Managers may lack the empathy or the capacity to sense intuitively the thoughts and feelings of their subordinates.
On the other end of the organizational spectrum, leaders are trail blazers and have mystical beliefs associated with them. Leaders demonstrate a deep repertoire and a larger appetite for risk. They encourage more options, promote creative approaches and campaign for fresh choices to long standing issues. Leaders are active rather than reactive and constantly exploring new dimensions for spurting organizational growth. Leaders are passionate about setting new organizational goals and competitive strategy and later laying out the path to achieve them. To be effective, leaders project their ideas onto the images that excite people and later develop choices that give those images substance. Leaders are more authentic, the outside matches the inside.
Both managers and leaders have been constantly subjected to more than their fair share of criticism. Leaders are ridiculed for promoting a utopian vision while managers are criticized for enforcing a myopic view. Leaders are blamed for tolerating chaos and for lack of structure. Managers are blamed for setting rigid boundaries and sucking the oxygen out from the work-place. Despite all the criticism and stigma, managers and leaders perform important roles in managing and leading an organization as we shall see.
In well-led organizations, managers manage complexity and promote stability while leaders manage change and promote new ideas. Managers carry out planning and budgeting and leaders set strategic vision and new direction. Managers are responsible for the organizational structure and staffing while leaders complement manager’s duties by carrying out an all important task of aligning the people. Managers address controlling issues and solve organizational problems. Leaders address motivational issues and invigorate human capital.
As illustrated earlier, leaders and managers set unique goals, demonstrate distinctive set of skills and perform strikingly different roles in an organization. The transformational leadership style of leaders is resoundingly different from the transactional leadership style of managers. Yet both leadership styles are paramount to an organization’s success and its longer term survival. Recognizing this distinction between the roles played by managers and leaders is vital to an organization’s success. A person armed with this knowledge can quickly diagnose the issues plaguing an organization and suggest appropriate remedial action and steer the organization out of tumultuous waters.
Leaders and managers are essentially two sides of the same coin and the notion that leaders are not good managers and vice versa has increasingly become less meaningful. Leaders and managers are crossing into the traditionally held territory of one another to deliver the maximum impact. Interestingly, many senior executives have absorbed this view into a strategic advantage and have started cultivating the best qualities of leaders and managers at early level and middle level ranks in their organizations.
In today’s fiercely competitive and global environment, organizations are becoming increasingly complex to manage and equally tough to lead. An organization can’t afford to completely look inward and turn a blind eye to its competitors and customers. It can’t also be completely looking outward and ignore the issues of its employees or allow the processes and structures to completely disintegrate. Only organizations that embrace change and blend the best of both groups, Managers and Leaders, will thrive.
