Leading or managing?

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Leading or managing?

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The PALINET Leadership Network is for and about leaders and leadership--and sometimes it's easy to confuse leading and managing. While it's certainly true that leaders aren't always managers and managers aren't always leaders, it's not quite so clear that managers always need to be leaders, or vice-versa.

Two bloggers who are both managers and leaders commented on these issues recently. Your comments?

Leadership vs. management

by Jeff Scott. Originally appeared in somewhat different form as a May 16, 2008 post at Gather no dust. Used by permission.

I have been following the seven part series on Leadership turn that discusses the difference between a leader and a manager. Most of this dialogue is taken from the book Learning to Lead and other books by Warren Bennis. The thing that bothers me about this discussion is the comparison with a manager.

Why make this comparison? A manager is not a leader by default, but it is easy to make that assumption (the point of the article is to make that distinction, but I think it furthers that mythology as manager as leader or hopes to have the manager think like a leader).

Anyone can be a leader. A manager is a job description. Often there is discussion on who is a leader, what is a leader. The reality is, anyone can be a leader. A leader must simply influence others to do something. If you write something and someone is influenced to do something, you are a leader. If you give a presentation or talk, and it influences someone to do something, you are a leader. Many librarian bloggers are leaders because they inspire others to do things, to try things, to change their thinking and make things better. Why do we get so stuck in combining management and leadership?

Another wrinkle is when a manager does act as a leader. They attempt to create an innovative environment. This has its problems. The words of a manager are taken seriously, sometimes too seriously, and the cry to innovate or to be innovative becomes an order instead of something that is inspired. In management, if you tell someone to do something, they may not be inspired to do that thing.

However, if a manager is a leader, they can influence and inspire someone to do better. The problem lies with manager as bossman telling you what to do, or manager as leader stating, "I believe in what you are doing". If you have a vision to make things constantly better, others should do it without asking. They should think of those solutions on their own. If they are truly free to make decisions, then they lead the way. You just follow. As the quote goes,

As for the best leader, the people do not notice their existence. To lead people, walk behind them --Lao Tzu

In the end, if you have a truly innovative environment where people come up with change on their own, then all you have to do is give them extra money when they need it and negotiate resources when it goes beyond their ability or scope.

Comment excerpts

  • Wes Ball, author of Leadership turn, noted that the portion of the series that's from Bennis is a list of thirteen attributes of leaders and managers. Ball continues, in part: "My premise was that in order to manage today's far savvier workforce a manager needs to have many of the skills that are attributed to "leaders." I agree with you that anyone can lead—call them leaders in the instance. Good managers inspire their people, they don't order them, but inspiring is a leadership trait. Hence my belief that the best managers possess leadership skills. I don't believe that leadership is a function of position or intent. Real leadership is a function of who you are and how you choose to live your life, with any recognition coming unsought from those around you..."
  • Jeff Scott responded, in part: "All managers need leadership skills to inspire their employees to greatness. I completely agree with you. More should adopt this idea rather than simply assume they are a leader because they are a manager. That's where a great deal of bad leadership comes in. My take was that I would like to see more leadership from all staff... My point was to take out the job description part and just talk about what is a leader."
  • Ball responded with this pithy summation: "Leadership is who you are and how you choose to live, but it's the court of public opinion that actually confers the title."

Quit leading and start managing

by Doug Johnson. Originally appeared in somewhat different form as a June 2, 2008 post at The Blue Skunk Blog. Used by permission.
  • "Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things." Peter Drucker
  • "You can't do the right things unless you know how to do things right." The Blue Skunk

I am getting a little tired of the emphasis on leadership in society and especially in education. For all the talk, all the theories, all the studies, all the exhortations, this push is getting us nowhere--and good management may be suffering as a result.

Here are some deadly warning signs I've noticed lately...

  • Has your local grad school replaced its administration and management classes with leadership classes?
  • Has your professional organization's standards become a "visionary" document instead a practical description of and guidelines for an effective program?
  • Has your last administrator been hired based on his philosophy and not his track record of running schools well?

I will state right up front that I am a better manager than I am a leader. The workshops and articles of which I am most proud tend to be management rather than leader focused. Budgeting, tech planning, policy-making, skills integration, effective staff development and program evaluation are among my favorites. It's pretty easy to sneer at sharing "how-I-done-it-good" stories rather than research or high-blown commentary. But those looking down their noses probably aren't the folks trying to make actual changes in the classroom or library.

Let's face it: anybody can create a vision and cry loudly about all the things that are wrong and paint a utopian view that sounds pretty good (and it seems like almost everyone does). But what is usually lacking is any practical means of moving from Point A to Point B--especially within the parameters of working with real people, real budgets and a real number of hours in a day. I would contend that true genius is in finding ways to make vision reality--working where the rubber hits the road.

I've been wondering a good deal about what seems to be a round of recent political, economic and educational disasters-- the Iraq War, the handling of Hurricane Katrina, the housing bubble, NCLB--and questioning whether it was a lack of leadership or piss-poor management that created (or exacerbated) the mess. Let's see:

  • Removing an evil dictator and establishing a democracy in the Middle East - good vision, poor execution
  • Helping the victims of a natural disaster - good vision, poor execution
  • Increasing the number of people who own their own homes - good vision, poor execution
  • Assuring that all children have good reading and math skills - good vision, poor execution

Where did we go wrong? Might it have been putting people who couldn't manage a one-car parade in charge? Leaders, not managers? Hmmmmm.

Pat a good manager on the back today...

Comment excerpts

  • "I think that good leaders lead by example. And more often than not, that example means being organized, polite, efficient, smart-- the qualities of a good manager. A great principal interview candidate once said in an interview, "leadership is not an event" and I never forgot it...."
  • "On the one hand, administrators are hired to manage programs, to be facilitate the "do-ers" that they have to get the job done. While their opinions are often sought, the decision of what to do doesn't necessarily come from them... While I understand that leadership gurus are focused on "empowering" you, helping you feel less helpless and giving you something to do to make change happen--and I believe we are powerful beyond measure--it gets tiring to hear their exhortations and short, engaging, pie in the sky stories. Give me a hands-on, how-to manager who gets things done...let upper administration take the heat of poor leadership, a failure to listen, and other flaws usually ascribed to the middle manager."
  • [Responding to the above: "Your message made me think that one way of looking at the leadership/management task is that leaders point out problems/goals and managers figure out how to solve/achieve them."
  • "I'd say you have to have both visionaries and managers.... Because a shortsighted (or just plain bad) vision well executed doesn't get us anywhere either.. I'd agree that the balance has probably shifted too far in one direction, but there is still some value in the visionaries."
  • "A good leader in my mind is the one who can not only develop and articulate the vision, but also the one who develops the strategic plan that moves the program closer to that vision. The two activities aren't mutually exclusive."

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Your turn: Talk about it

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