What’s more important, leadership or management?
I see plenty of assertions like “managers feel energized by their own results; leaders feel energized by their team’s results”, and “managers want to feel irreplaceable; leaders want their followers to replace them”, because the comparison of these two skillsets has been oversimplified and perhaps misunderstood.
But where do these perceptions come from? And how do they impact our understanding of leadership development in the workplace?
When I began my first people management position 20 years ago, I told my boss that I was struggling with delegation, and he said, “you are the manager now, they MUST do what you say!”. Delegation wasn’t viewed as a skill that can be practiced and developed, but rather a formal power that I was now expected to wield. Having spent the last 8 years receiving and facilitating leadership development, I’ve witnessed the positive impact it has on teams and culture. I’ve also observed the benefits of putting the word “leadership” on a pedestal to celebrate competencies like relationship building, empathy, and collaboration, cracking the harsher authoritative mindset of the past.
Yet, many of the skills that are expected of modern leaders aren’t unique to leadership, but competencies that are shared by both leadership and management that impact the working environment for everyone, like effective communication and emotional intelligence.
These misguided perceptions that leaders=good and managers=bad are untrue and unhelpful in the quest to help people develop the skills required to create thriving work environments. This article will explore why companies and teams don’t need leadership instead of management. They need both; and we need to embrace the synergy.
MYTH: All leaders are managers, and all managers are leaders.
REALITY: While many roles require a mix of both (with a large variance), leadership and management are two separate skillsets that serve two different purposes, both equally important in the workplace. People can be naturally talented in one, both, or neither skillset, but both can be practiced and developed.
What is Leadership?
There are varying definitions of leadership, commonly referred to as the process of leading people toward a shared vision. Organizational leadership refers to a strategic management approach that systematically applies leadership theory to the business strategy. Some argue that leadership is simply the ability to influence.
I prefer John Kotter’s (1990) distinction, that the purpose of leadership is to produce change and movement, whereas the purpose of management is to produce order and consistency. Here are some leadership-specific competencies:
- Provides a vision. A motivating picture of the future. Where are we going? What does it look like? Why? Developing a vision is a process and involves analysis of internal & external data, and perspectives from many people. The vision is crucial in not only motivating people to follow, but to ensure that everyone is moving in the same direction.
- Establishes the long-term strategy. How are we going to get there? Break the vision down into smaller goals. Clarify the big picture and provide reasonable transparency (especially in the presence of unknown variables) to help build trust among followers.
- Influences and aligns people. There are many ways to achieve influence. When people exhibit authoritative or transactional leadership styles, for example, the influence is rooted in the follower’s obligation to act from a positional or transactional standpoint, they must. This differs from relational and transformational styles that focus on relationship building and empowerment, respectively, inspiring followers to act because they want to.
- Inspires, empowers, and equips followers. Inspiration is the warm feeling that people get when they emotionally connect with the vision. Powerful, but not enough on its own. To act upon this inspiration, one must feel empowered to do so. To be successful, one must be equipped with the necessary knowledge, skills, tools, and resources.
MYTH: Leaders are only at the top of an organization, and managers below them carry out the vision.
REALITY: It is far too complex to separate leaders and managers concretely in this way. While organizational leadership traditionally relies on senior leaders providing a vision and strategy, formal power or title isn’t necessary to demonstrate leadership skills. I’ve seen entry level ‘managers’ lead widespread change. Alternatively, some ‘leaders’ at the top of organizations are better categorized as senior managers that establish and control a structure. This in itself is a strategic, creative, and necessary responsibility in any organization, but it’s not the same thing as a vision.
What is Management?
One of the earliest descriptions of management that still serves as a solid foundation today is “planning, organizing, staffing, and controlling” (Northouse, 2021), born from the necessity to reduce chaos by producing order and consistency. Here are some management-specific competencies:
- Provides a structure. An organized arrangement of processes, roles, responsibilities, and tasks. A well-defined structure will clarify how elements of the business fit together to achieve its goals. Just like a vision, a great structure incorporates data-backed decisions and diverse perspectives. Realistically, many managers will enter a preexisting structure which they are tasked with controlling.
- Establishes procedures, rules, and incentives. These help form the structure and adherence to it. Goals and incentives generate motivation. In fact, certain components of the structure can make or break a manager’s ability to foster cultures of inclusion, trust, fairness, and excellence.
- Organizes, controls, and allocates resources. Resources can be tangible or intangible and may or may not include people. Control is a sensitive word when it comes to people, understandably so. Great managers don’t seek to control people, they seek to control the structure, which often includes ensuring that the right people are in the right roles with the right skills & resources at the right times.
- Plans, schedules, delegates, and arranges. Anything from people, resources, tasks, responsibilities, roles, projects, etc., to make things happen and maximize the effectiveness of the structure. A lack of management can cause anything from bothersome disorganization to complete business failure.
What variance of these two skillsets is required in your role? In your team’s roles?
MYTH: Managers control people; leaders inspire people.
REALITY: This is a misleading oversimplification. Indeed, management controls the structure, which often includes people. Arguably, leadership uses control as well, yet in a different way, by guiding people to move in the same direction toward a vision or goal. There are plenty of leaders that successfully inspire people to do objectively bad things. Meanwhile, there are managers that inspire greatness by fostering structures and environments in which people feel valued for their unique strengths, contributions, and ideas.
Embracing the Synergy
It’s arguably unrealistic to expect the same person to be skilled at leading change and creating consistency simultaneously, and yet, many of our roles require exactly that. Whether you call yourself a manager, leader, boss, supervisor, etc., you likely have to balance responsibilities of managing the structure while also leading and developing a team of people.
Ultimately, people want to be led, not managed. Respected, appreciated, and treated like a human rather than an object or resource. Well thanks, that sounds obvious! Perhaps. But what may not be obvious is that many managers and leaders agree with that statement, yet they don’t know how to make it a reality.
According to Gallup’s extensive global workplace research, direct supervisors account for up to 70% of employee engagement variance (Clifton, J., & Harter, J., 2021). It’s not a secret that engaged employees perform better and stay at their jobs longer. The research also reveals that career satisfaction plays a significant part of our overall wellbeing.
THE TRUTH:
The behaviors that people want to see from their supervisors often aren’t leadership-specific skills at all, but competencies that are shared by both leadership AND management that shape the working environment for everyone. Consider these:
- Communication. Let’s be honest, this lives near the top of employee complaints. Effective communication is a two-way process that requires clarity, conciseness, timeliness, and consistency, supported by the organizational structure. Equally, if not more important are the individual communication skills of managers and leaders that engage with the workforce. It’s about more than relaying information. It requires follow through, providing valuable feedback, meaningful recognition, and active listening.
- Emotional Intelligence (EQ/EI). Personal and social competence that extends beyond technical skills. Getting results through understanding people. The ability to read the room and make better workplace decisions. It can be the difference between being a boss, and being a boss that people want to work for. Begin with self-awareness.
- Team Building. I’m not referring to forced and awkward activities, but the competency of building and engaging a thriving team. This involves ensuring that the right people are in the right roles with the right skills. It also means fostering appropriate opportunities for the team to collaborate and build working relationships. Moreover, these opportunities should be diverse, and designed around the practicality of the team’s interaction needs in the workplace.
These lists certainly aren’t all-encompassing but meant to highlight the purpose of each skillset and embrace the synergy that is needed to build thriving teams and workplaces.
At LFT, we believe that developing these skills is best accomplished with a strengths-based development approach, empowering people to build self-awareness and authentic skills that can be applied to all aspects of life. Learn more about strengths-based leadership coaching.
References
Clifton, J. & Harter, J. (2021). Wellbeing at work. Simon and Schuster.
Kotter, J. P. (1990). Force For Change: How Leadership Differs from Management. Harvard Business Review Press.
Northouse, P.G. (2021). Leadership: Theory and Practice (9th edition). Sage Publishing.