Leadership vs Management

Leadership and management are abilities that are far too often confused and conflated in mainstream discourse. There are some similarities between the two, but they are in fact very distinct abilities that encompass a different set of skills and qualities. Good or great managers are present in many organizations while good or great leaders are much scarcer. The skills needed to be a great manager can be developed and honed while the skills necessary to be a great leader tend to be more innate and more difficult to learn (although not impossible).
Managers can manage any number of things. They can manage a task, subordinates, projects, transitions, meetings, or even expectations. Leaders lead people. That is the essence of the difference. A great leader must have the ability to inspire and compel followers (subordinates in the case of a company) to act and perform on behalf of something that may or may not serve their own self interest.
Followers of a great leader will execute their duties because they believe in what they are doing. They will carry it out to the best of their abilities because they are inspired by the vision laid out by the leader. Subordinates of managers will carry out their tasks because it is required a part of their occupation. They may or may not have any interest in the completion of the task and its broader significance to the good of the organization. As we all know, people will always do a more competent job when they are doing something they believe in.
Obviously, leadership and management are not mutually exclusive abilities. Great managers can be great leaders and vice versa. A great manager is always results oriented, plans exhaustively and delegates accordingly to maintain a stable and conflict free (to the extent it’s possible) work environment. A leader can do all of these things but might take a different route or use different methods to accomplish these tasks. Great leaders use there charisma to motivate followers to excel while managers draw upon the formal authority bestowed upon them to accomplish objectives.
In a business environment, having great leaders within the structure of your organization is more than just a bonus. Great leaders within the various levels of management in a large organization can serve as a competitive advantage in your industry. Every objective study that has been conducted on the issue finds that employees are more inspired, efficient and ultimately more productive when they are in regular contact with great leadership. On the other hand, uninspiring and lackluster management can cause productivity to wane. This data has compelled many companies to add leadership development programs to their training agenda.
Great leaders are usually charismatic and occasionally transformational. Embodying these characteristics comes naturally to a few but requires study and practice for most. One’s emotional intelligence must be trained and developed in a rigorous manner so the characteristics of leadership will become sincere and not transparently disingenuous. If effective managers can become great leaders, they increase their level of service to the organization and themselves exponentially.