When talking about managers people often confuse two terms: a manager and a leader. The difference is pretty simple however.
Management is a job while leadership is an attribute.
You can be promoted to a manager role, but you can’t be promoted to be a leader. To become one you need to work your butt out showing your leadership in the battlefield. You have to inspire people, make them believe they can achieve a goal and motivate them to work harder. Or smarter. Whatever. That’s definitely not enough to tell them “go and get that and better be quick.”
In normal situation managers, who aren’t leaders, usually end their work when they tell their teams what to do. Micromanagers go even further. They tell what and how exactly thing should be done. Anyway they’re barely a kind of task-dealers.
Leaders not only point goals and give out tasks but also encourage people to show their own initiative and creativity. They take decisions when it’s needed and are always ready to face any problem team can encounter. You’d willfully follow the leader while you wouldn’t follow the manager if you didn’t have to. Not that you often have a choice.
Good manager is always a good leader while poor manager is barely a white collar.
Leave a Reply