Leadership & Management

Leadership and management are commonly seen as the same thing, which they are not. Leadership is also misunderstood to mean directing and instructing people and making important decisions on behalf of an organization. Effective leadership is much more than these.

Good leaders are followed chiefly because people trust and respect them, rather than the skills they possess. Leadership is about behaviour first, skills second.

This is a simple way to see how leadership is different to management:

• Management is mostly about processes.
• Leadership is mostly about behaviour.

We could extend this to say:

• Management relies heavily on tangible measurable capabilities such as effective planning; the use of organizational systems; and the use of appropriate communications methods. 
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• Leadership involves many management skills, but generally as a secondary or background function of true leadership. Leadership instead relies most strongly on less tangible and less measurable things like trust, inspiration, attitude, decision-making, and personal character. These are not processes or skills or even necessarily the result of experience. They are facets of humanity, and are enabled mainly by the leader's character and especially his/her emotional reserves. 

Another way to see leadership compared with management, is that leadership does not crucially depend on the type of management methods and processes a leaders uses; leadership instead primarily depends on the ways in which the leader uses management methods and processes.

"Good leadership depends on attitudinal qualities, not management processes"

Humanity is a way to describe these qualities, because this reflects the leader's vital relationship with people.

Qualities critical for a leader's relationship with his/her people are quite different to conventional skills and processes:

Examples of highly significant leadership qualities

• integrity
• honesty
• humility
• courage
• commitment
• sincerity
• passion
• confidence
• positivity
• wisdom
• determination
• compassion
• sensitivity

People with these sort of behaviours and attitudes tend to attract followers. Followers are naturally drawn to people who exhibit strength and can inspire belief in others. These qualities tend to produce a charismatic effect. Charisma tends to result from effective leadership and the qualities which enable effective leadership. 

Charisma is by itself no guarantee of effective leadership.

Some people are born more naturally to leadership than others. Most people don't seek to be a leader, but many more people are able to lead, in one way or another and in one situation or another, than they realize.

People who want to be a leader can develop leadership ability. Leadership is not the exclusive preserve of the wealthy and educated.

Leadership is a matter of personal conviction and believing strongly in a cause or aim, whatever it is.