Management Is Not Leadership

Contrary to what you might believe, management is not leadership - managers are not necessarily leaders. In other words, managing is not the same thing as providing leadership. We use that term loosely and are thus misled by it. A person who has position power in an organization is not magically transformed into a leader merely by calling him or her one. Some key points to consider:

• Managers are appointed by their bosses. Leaders have to earn a leadership role by being endorsed by their constituents. Managers hire subordinates. Leaders have to earn their followers.
• Responsibility is not the same thing as leadership. Managers think of themselves as responsible for the outcomes. Leaders think of themselves as responsible for the people who make the outcomes happen. Managers require people to do things right. Leaders lead people to do the right things.

The list of differences is lengthy. But what's most to the point here is the mistaken belief that becoming a better and better manager will eventually turn that person into a leader. This will not happen. Those who do not deeply comprehend those differences will never become leaders, no matter how good they get at managing.

The managerial mindset takes you down a path that is contrary to the path of leadership. Under the influence of this mindset, managers do not think like leaders do. Thus managers do not make decisions or take actions like leaders do.

Managers organize for what's likely or what's possible - leaders for what is unlikely or for what is deemed at the outset to be impossible. Leaders have a lust to experience the world of which they have a vision - beyond the possible.

Remember, it is our mindsets that lead us, that take us where they go. In this case, our conventional Western managerial mindset can be a serious obstacle to the kind of thinking required to pursue a great achievement. Mindsets are bundles of habits - and our habits will take us in the direction they aim, not necessarily in the direction we aim.

Comments

[Bennet Simonton]

I respectfully disagree, Lee. Not sure why you demean managers, but you do a lot of them great disservice.

I managed people for over 30 years, made all the errors one can make and learned fixes to all. Those fixes allowed me to successfully turn around four different management disasters and achieve huge increases in productivity, north of 300% per person, and a workforce with great morale literally loving to come to work.

Quite simply, managers manage resources and functions such as finance, machines, production, supply chain, and people. People are just another resource. Each of these has particular characteristics which dictate, repeat dictate how they should be managed. Fail to understand their characteristics and you will fail to make effective use of that resource or function.

People have certain characteristics such as the basic needs to be heard and to be respected. The vast majority of people are conformists who respond to leadership, good or bad, a characteristic not shared by machines or finances. This they can be "led" to do great things or very bad things or somewhere in between as determined by their boss' leadership.

My point is that manager or leader is a false issue and only serves to prevent us from understanding what we need to do. If you are dealing with people, you need to understand what leadership actually is, or what it is that people follow, and how to use it to your advantage.

To learn more a superior way to manage people, I invite you to read the articles at
http://www.bensimonton.com/articles.html

I recommend starting with the article "Leadership, Good or Bad".

Best regards, Ben

[JG]

Dr. Thayer,

I have studied your Communication work for years and just placed my order for the "Thinking, Being, Doing" book. Thank you for sharing your wisdom in this online format.

Through your thoughts, it seems that if one wants to change one's situation, then becoming aware of one's mindset (one's bundle of habits) and altering them accordingly is in order, if those mindsets are not leading one where one wants to go. So, my question is, what are some ways in which we can create new mindsets that will lead us where we need to go?

Also, it seems that by actively putting oneself in leadership situations and/or surrounding oneself with other great leaders, can we come enhance our capacity to conjure beyond the possible. What do you think about this?

[Lee Thayer]

Thank you for your comment, Jamie. To your first question: As you know, we’re talking about habits here. This almost always requires “killing” a wrong habit to replace it with a better one. The better your picture of where you want to go, the easier it is to determine which habits of perception/conception will take you there and which ones will take you somewhere else.

To your second question: a place we have never been before requires a good and robust imagination. Then, as you know the old saw: Going where we have never been before requires us to do what we have never done before. Immersion in great leadership - not necessarily the people at hand - could help! Make sense?
Lee T