Articles

Leaders and Managers - Some Important Differences

There has never been a greater need for business leadership to help organisations navigate their way through these difficult economic times.  However, over management still seems to be the dominant force in many cultures.  Below we’ve listed five of the most common examples:

1. Managers are appointed, leaders indentified
2. Managers hide behind status, leaders confront challenges
3. Managers focus on financial outputs, leaders on value adding inputs
4. Managers are interested in blame, leaders in consequences
5. Managers take people for granted, leaders recognise peoples’ contribution

You’ll notice that what leaders are doing is being far more pro-active in the way they engage with both their environment and the people around them.  The leader mind-set seems to be much more action orientated than the manager version.  And by action orientated we don’t mean, doing other peoples’ jobs for them, getting involved in too much granular detail or generally running round like a lunatic.  Action orientated to us is much more about seeing where a high impact intervention can be made and then making it.

The pressures of modern business life mean one can’t do everything – discrimination and sometimes painful prioritisation is required.  This is where the leader stands out.  They have the insight to see where they can obtain real leverage in their decision making and the focus to then see it through.  Leaders achieve more than managers.

Leaders are also much more self-confident in themselves.  They don’t need the status of their position to validate who they are; they find meaning in their achievements.  This is because they are working to a higher purpose.  Not one simply around the utility of hitting a set of numbers, but the creating of something that currently doesn’t exist.  It’s this that energises them, and the secondary outcome is the numbers get delivered.

Increasing organisational leadership capability is what Predaptive do. To find out more please contact:

Claudine Mcclean
T: 01789 734333
E: claudinem@predaptive.com