Do You Know the Difference Between Leadership and Management?

Leadership and management are very different. You manage things and you lead people. Leadership is about inspiring people to do things they wouldn't normally do.

I recently had the honor of being asked to provide my perspective on the difference between leadership and management as a contributor to a great document called Lead(or) Manage. The architect of this work is David Burkus over at LeaderLab.

Here's my contribution to that great work (my entry is on page 14 of the PDF) but you HAVE TO go read the rest of it - the perspectives therein are fantastic. You'll get a great taste of fantastic leadership perspectives from folks who are exponentially smarter than I am. This is deliberately a short blog post because I want you to use all the time you save to go download and read the rest of the document here. I encourage you to share this post with your friends and colleagues so they have access to the same great content you do.

So here's my take on the difference between leadership and management:

It’s NOT Paradoxical – It’s Definitional

The difference between leadership and management is actually quite simple. You manage things. You lead people. It’s amazing there is so much confusion and writing on this point.

Management is task-focused. It’s short term. It’s a series of checklists and “to do’s” that ensure the work gets done. It’s how we execute tasks to achieve a specific desired outcome. It’s taking actions to hit a budget number or deliver a project on time. Said most simply, it’s the movement of personnel, materiel, and tasks with an exact set of results in mind.

Leadership is people-focused. It’s the words said and actions performed to inspire something deep within another. It is the demonstration of a belief that others come before you and your only interest is their best interest. Leadership entails articulating a vision of something larger than all who are involved and helping those involved understand their role in achieving it. It’s providing the spark that fires someone’s drive to go take on seemingly insurmountable challenges because they believe in the desired outcome to the core of their being.

Leadership and management work hand in hand but truly are entirely different concepts.

So that's my 0.02. What do you think? What do you think about the other perspectives in the LeaderLab document? Please share.

Mike is the managing director of thoughtLEADERS, LLC – a leadership development training firm. Follow thoughtLEADERS?on LinkedIn HERE to get our latest articles and special offers on our eLearning courses.

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