The Lline Between Leadership and Management

There is a fine line between leadership and management. The line is in continuous flux, hence the understanding that those who espouse to be a leader or a manager, must be flexible enough to adapt to the given situation at hand. One must know when to go into the manager mode and when to become that servant type leader.

The most important factor in determining where the line starts and where it might end is in gaining an understanding of what constitutes leadership, and what constitutes management. True leaders lead by example and inspire others to greatness. Managers generally default to their position, title, and/or authority to extract effort from others in task accomplishment.

In general, if one were to visit a given organization and randomly inquire of the people to identify a leader by name, most will offer the name of the CEO. The misunderstanding of associating "leader" with the individual who tops the hierarchal chain is a misnomer at best. Unfortunately, this misguided information is being passed along by academics, citing examples of people holding supervisory positions and claiming to be studying leadership. The mere study of leadership, does not a leader make.

However, people holding positions of authority in organizations “can” be leaders. Certainly those in an authoritative role are afforded the freedom and autonomy to act in a leader-like manner. Cases can be brought to bear which support both good and bad examples of authority figures in action; those who drank the proverbial Kool-Aid and went down the road of non-leader-like behaviors, and those who performed extraordinary acts of selfless leadership.

An effective leader must be a good manager and a good manager must be an effective leader. If the goal of an organization is to maximize profits, then both the manager AND the leaders must be actively engaged in growing their people. We must encourage, care, recognize, praise, coach, and mentor; in short we should be in the business of developing our replacement. Because, the truest form of leadership is to focus on the followers, not on the self.