Leadership and Management – Chalk and Cheese
 
by Trevor Gay

“There is a difference between leadership and management. Leadership is of the spirit, compounded of personality and vision; its practice is an art. Management is of the mind, a matter of accurate calculation ….its practice is a science. Managers are necessary; leaders are essential”

Field Marshall Lord Slim, when Governor-General of Australia

 “Leaders say … this is where we are going….. Managers say … this is how we are going to get there.”

A General Practitioner as part of interview during my research

I suggest leadership and management are as different as chalk and cheese. My views have been formed over many years as a manager in the NHS and particularly as a result of my research when studying leadership from the perspective of family doctors in 1997/8.

Good managers do not necessarily make good leaders and good leaders do not necessarily make good managers. Each has a distinct role. Leadership qualities are far less tangible and measurable whilst most management processes can be measured. Perhaps this is best summed up with Warren Bennis quote “Managers do things right … leaders do the right things.”

There is clearly something about effective leaders that makes them stand out from the crowd. I find it impossible to identify and quantify that elusive quality. When I look back through my own career, I have had superiors who are clearly leaders and those who are clearly managers.

The Leaders among my past bosses:

Ø Have high levels of integrity

Ø Are focused on the bigger picture

Ø Are not comfortable with “intense detail”

Ø Make me feel part of their vision

Ø Do not punish mistakes – they see mistakes as a learning opportunity

Ø Challenge the status quo

Ø Are not afraid of unpopularity.

The Managers among my past bosses:

Ø Are process driven

Ø Are comfortable with detail

Ø Are more interested in the bottom line than the wider vision

Ø Want to measure everything

Ø Are not comfortable challenging the corporate view.

I think the difference is around the words hard and soft. My experience of effective managers is they tend to be very good at the “hard stuff.” They are concerned with measurable outcomes – sometime obsessed with process at all costs. They appear to be driven by the need to prove their effectiveness in some tangible way. Leaders are also interested in the soft stuff – the immeasurable, the anecdote, the story.

A negative aspect of this was a story of one manager who was very stressed as he spoke to a colleague and volunteered the information that he was worried about the coming annual staff appraisals he “had to do” for his department. A few days later the pair met again and he was now relaxed – the stress had gone. He explained that he had now completed all appraisals – what he had actually done was take out appraisal files, ticked boxes and updated them without speaking to any member of his staff. As far as he was concerned “doing appraisals” was literally filling in forms and ticking boxes.

Effective leaders in my career are generally not so interested in the detail of process but they need to be assured there is a process. Paradoxically, the effective leader will be interested in something that may appear very trivial to “non leaders.” For example, many of us have worked in organisations that proclaim:

Ø “We value our staff”

Ø “We are an equal opportunities employer”

Ø “We value diversity.”

Picture now a wet, cold and dark winter morning, a 6 am early morning shift for the cleaner who parks her car in the staff car park 200 yards from the staff entrance. As she fights her way through the cold wind and rain to the entrance she notices the empty car park spaces reserved for Directors, Consultants and Chief Executive, positioned immediately outside the main entrance. She cannot help thinking the mission statement somehow just does not ring true. The effective leader will be interested in the feelings of that cleaner and even if the leader cannot solve the parking problem, the fact the he or she is interested at all, will spread around the organisation quicker than the speed of light. Quite often the leader will also solve the problem of the car parking as well. Small things are important – leadership is not only about the big picture.

Good leadership is usually underpinned by good management. In my experience good leaders employ effective managers and surround themselves with people who buy into the vision of the leader. The leader is always looking for improvement and though not a “change junkie” good leaders constantly question the status quo, looking for improvement. It was interesting that the first media interview with Alex Ferguson, the leader at Manchester United, after United won the Premiership Trophy for the eighth time in eleven years was full of references to “how we need to improve this team for next season.” Ferguson is called the “Manager” of Manchester United, to me; he is the “leader.” I suspect he is not interested in the intricate processes involved in running one of the biggest sporting organisations in the world. At the same time there are legendary tales of his detailed knowledge of what goes on in and around the club. It is also interesting that he has graduated to his current high standing without training in management other than in the “university of life.” We can learn a lot about management and leadership by studying sport. Another famous football “manager” was Bill Shankly of Liverpool Football Club who spoke the immortal words “Always change a winning team” - an interesting variation of the better known saying “Never change a winning team.” Again, Shankly was a leader with an impressive list of achievements and his management training was probably nil.

Both of these characters possess an ability to inspire others to sign up to their vision which, I believe, separates leaders from managers. Somehow these leaders create followers who will go the extra mile. This reminds me of the organisation where the CEO had a scheme of GEMS Awards for employees Going that Extra Mile Service. I guess they are all kinds of leaders and would suggest that it is not – in their case – an academic understanding of the science of management or leadership. It is probably some personal characteristic that is not tangible.

Finally I would suggest that leaders are generally born and not made. I doubt that people can learn how to be a leader from reading, studying or listening to lectures. There is something that makes leaders stand out from the rest of us. Leadership training is worthwhile. It is possible to teach leadership techniques and leadership competencies are becoming more widely used in management development. I suspect what emerges through that process will be good managers who become good leaders. The outstanding, natural leader will not need that training. Some of the greatest leaders in history never received training in the art of leadership – it came to them naturally and we should celebrate that mystical quality – even if we cannot measure it.

At the same time let us remember that leaders are in the minority and most of us mere mortals – are very effective foot soldiers - and we should also celebrate that. Many would argue wars are won by foot soldiers and not colonels. There is no question that managers and leaders are both important - both have a crucial role in organisations – but they are different.

Comments welcome

trevor.simplicity@gmail.com

http://simplicityitk.blogspot.com/