Management vs. Leadership

I came across a question in a forum the other day “Mastering the ART of Change, What is the difference between management and leadership”.

The answers I noticed were different but in a way very similar, management was about activity while leadership was about direction. When I spoke to my friends and colleagues a lot of them also thought that the two words were inter-changeable. I would tend to differ, by the following examples:

We use the term management in a wide variety of ways, “managing your life”, “managing your time”, “managing your affairs” and even “managing your work/personal life”, however we rarely have the word “lead” replace manage in any of these situations.

Peter F Drucker has stated:

"What is the first duty – and the continuing responsibility – of the business manager? To strive for the best possible economic results from the resources currently employed or available."

So my first observation was that management was more about transactions, activity and balancing various issues.

In most organizations “Managers” are expected to manage the state of affairs in their domain, whether it is related to people, processes, inventories or sales. We never really equate “Managers” with “Leaders” except in the context of “People issues”.

Leadership according to many respondents in the forum was more to do with direction, new ideas and leading people in a particular direction. A leader was a person with a vision, having ideas for the future. A leader is a person who is always guiding for a future.

Peter F Drucker on Leadership:

"Leadership is the lifting of a man’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a man’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a man’s personality beyond its normal limitations."

Throughout history, we have come across leaders as persons who have provided a vision, like:

Bill Gates ambitious vision “to place a computer on every desk and in every home”.

Speech by President John F. Kennedy, Delivered in person before a joint session of Congress on May 25, 1961, challenging America to land a man on the moon:

“I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish”

Or leadership provided by Winston Churchill during Britain’s darkest hour in World War II by this inspiring speech “we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender”.

I believe

“Management is about consolidation, Leadership is about vision and growth”.