Leaders vs. Managers - Very Different Terms

One of the more recent discussions I have been involved in with my colleagues has been the concept of leadership, in particular one of our professional comrades had been recently appointed a management position with leadership responsibilities. While many of us congratulated their accomplishment a few were quite cautious about it, one even citing their "youth" not just as a fact, but actually as a weakness or liability to the appointment. I responded that "youth", "time in grade", or any form of seniority-based promotion is only one form towards a leadership position. Another far more common approach especially in innovative and transformational organizations is achieving the position via merit; where one works consistently and continually demonstrating value.

At the core of the promotion happens to be the difference between leadership and management. Managers are mostly the ones given appointments usually based on seniority-based systems; time-in-grade, years of service, etc. Leaders on the other hand have earned their appointment via merits that which are generally achieved more quickly regardless of their tenure within an organization. In innovative companies, management positions are awarded via deeds and accomplishments based not only the past accomplishments but continuing accomplishments and future expectations.

Most organizations make the mistake of making their management appointments with the expectation that managers make good leaders. In truth this is rarely the case. Managers tend to be very involved in the day-to-day operations, rarely trusting those that report to them to actually get things done without their direct involvement. This results in a higher cost and ineffective solutions to an organization. Leaders usually assign tasks and let their teams get them accomplished with very wide latitudes and operational freedoms resulting in lower cost and transformational solutions that provide definitive competitive advantage for the organization.

Leaders with good teams demonstrate significantly different characteristics than managers with good teams.

Team Characteristics

Managers	Leaders
Traditional Follows Orders Slow Infrequent Iterations Meets plan objectives "Asks for permission"	Innovative Takes Direction Fast Multiple Iterations Exceeds business objectives "Asks for forgiveness"

While it is quite possible to see some behaviors that appear to be similar, these are from my experience infrequent. Characteristics are usually commonly found through the individuals within the designated teams. The differences when compared are quite stark. Some more common industry comparisons help. One example would be comparing say Slideshare.net with say an internal group within a larger company tasked with sharing documents. Slideshare is in fact much smaller personnel wise than some of the divisions within larger companies yet they deliver a far better experience than anything an internal team can do generally speaking. At this point in the analogy my point is usually proven in that professionals quickly point out "budgets", "different mission statements", "different goals", etc. In truth the only things that matter are that both entities have missions, they both have budgets, they both have goals. The only difference happens to be the characteristics of the teams and the culture they create to develop these teams. This is not to say the environments are not challenges but in essence, teams under great leaders are in fact very similar to entrepreneurs yet being on the inside of an organization rather than being on the outside and on their own.

In the end leaders are made not appointed. They are born through alignment of words and deeds that focuses not on the past, but the present and future. Every organization has managers to get the day-to-day done, but they often seek leaders to take them to the next level in the marketplace.