Effective Leadership #5 - Comparing Leaders and Managers
Hello Steemians! Hope you are all wonderful. Welcome to yet another article in Effective Leadership series. In this article, we will compare leaders and managers and understand how they are different. The responsibilities and the perspectives of a manager and leader differs. There is no harm in being a manager but it is important to understand how a leader is different from a manager. In all the situations just a leadership may not be sufficient, the importance for a manager emerges to manage the team. Both are two different streams and very important for a smooth and successful business. Not every team member will be comfortable with a manager. The expectation of the manager will be to just accomplish a task but a leader will lead the team and travel along with them to accomplish the task.
Roles and Responsibilities of a Leader and Manager
As mentioned in the above paragraph, there are quite a lot of differences in being a manager and a leader. Both are two different things and probably there is some confusion at times in understanding about the roles and responsibilities of a leader and manager.
| Leaders | Managers |
|---|---|
| Administer - Administration is an important role to be performed by a leader. It is the responsibility of a leader to be creative and streamline the activities performed by the team. In order to get good efficiency out of the team members, a leader should be a good administrator. | Implement - A role of a manager is to implement something. He is not worried much about how it is being implemented. A leader takes care all other details on how things are implemented. The manager focuses more on getting something implemented on any cause by involving the best team. A leader will be held accountable by the manager in completing the implementation. |
| Originate - A should be creative enough to originate an idea from scratch. Creativity is an important thing for a leader to lead a team and implement ideas in the process. This skill is not just part of a leader but it is also brought out from the subordinates as well. Implementing unique ideas is an important skill for a good leader. | Copy - It is completely okay for a manager to copy an idea from another working process or team. The focus of a manager is on doing things best in anyways. So to achieve excellence, it is okay for a manager to copy something that is already working effectively and channel it to their team. |
| Develop - A leader should be able to develop things from scratch with individual expertise or the expertise of the team. Development not only includes doing new things but it also includes enhancing existing things as well. | Maintain - Manager need not necessarily worry about developing things. It is more than enough if a manager just maintains what has been developed already. The full focus of a manager is to keep things rolling. Innovating new ideas will just be triggered by the manager but rest of the work will be done by the leader. |
| Inspire Trust - A leader is a person who travels along with the co-workers understanding their day to day activities. Doing this process, they inspire their subordinates and builds up a trust. This helps the leader gel with the team easily. An effective leader exhibits skills in such a way that the subordinates just blindly follow the instructions provided by the leader all because of the trust they have in their leader. | Control - Manager takes control of every situation. For some subordinates, control may be very important for them to work efficiently. Not all the subordinates are inspired by their leaders. Some managers are also satisfied by just knowing that the control is in their hands. It need not necessarily be with them but the control gives them a secure feeling. |
| Think Long-Term - When implementing something, a leader will always think in all the scenarios and make sure the implementation that they are making lasts for a longer period of time. It can be any type of work but leaders always focus on a long-term solution. | Think Short Term - The goals of a manager are just for short period of time. Based on the strategy of the company they narrow down the goals to their team members. Most of these goals that are set are for short period of time. |
| Ask what and why - When a task is provided to a leader, their duty is to analyze what the requirement thoroughly and provide a perfect solution. In order to accomplish the task successfully, an effective leader will ask what the task is and why we are doing it. When a leader gets a clear idea of the task, it will then will channel to the team for execution. | Ask how and when - A manager need not necessarily know what the task is and why the team is taking a particular approach. They trust the leaders and they just get answers for the question how and when. The leader will explain how the task will be executed and the deadline planned to complete the task. In some cases, deadlines are also defined by the managers. |
| Watch the horizon - From start to the end of the project, a leader takes complete responsibility and understand in and out of the project. A leader is a person who will be able to answer any type of question regarding the task or project that a team is doing. This will help the leader to provide expert advice wherever required and enhance the process. | Watch the bottom line - Details about the project will not be important for a manager. When details are provided to a manager, they will just see the bottom line. It is enough if an update is provided to the manager with the current status of the project. Complete details may be too much of information for a manager. |
| Are their own people - A leader considers the whole team as their own people because the leader is also part of the team working really hard to produce good results. They not only care about providing quality work but they also focus on the benefit and comfort of their team. | Are good soldiers - For a manager work is the first thing that comes to their mind. They see people only as a group of soldiers executing the commands given to them. It doesn't mean that they don't really care about the people but it is like they don't really have to worry about every individual in the team because it is already being handled by the respective leaders. |
| Do the right thing - When there is a requirement, a leader plans the right things and execute the plan to get things right. In the full process, a leader is fully responsible in doing the right thing. This starts from the requirement gathering to planning and to finally the execution stage. Every task that a leader does and the subordinates do, quality analysis is made frequently to identify if only right things are being done. | Do things right - A manager doesn't usually get into details. So the only responsibility of the manager is to verify if thing are right. Manager just gives a sign to the leader and team that things should be right. Other details about the approach to be taken will not be explained or detailed by a manager. It completely becomes leader's responsibility. |
Leader with skills of a manager
As mentioned earlier, leadership skills and managerial skills are two different streams. A leader will also need the skills of a manager. The manager driven companies have been successful for several decades. This idea of having a leader inside the team is emerging in the recent years to inspire and motivate the subordinates. If the great leaders acquire the managerial skills with experience and become a manager, they will easily understand the needs of a subordinate and will be able to promote a positive and productive work culture.
Share your views on the managerial skill and leadership skills in the comments section. Meet you again in another article in this series.
My previous articles in this series:
Effective Leadership #2 - Focusing on Quality
Effective Leadership #3 - Learning From Others
Effective Leadership #4 - Gaining Experience
Stay tuned for future articles on effective leadership.
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an invaluable lesson to managerial trainees. sharing it on twitter.