On the perils of management vs leadership – which are you?
Are you a manager or a leader? Can you take the traits of working in the known and the unknown too far?
This article can be heard on Episode 10 of the Tales under the cat tree Podcast.
I was once asked by my company to describe what made a great manager. Instead of listing a bunch of traits, the naive me sat down and described the difference between a manager and a leader. In the back of my mind, and only knowing my own context, I was hoping to have more people question what made themselves tick. I say “naive” because, in setting those traits down, I believe anyone reading them probably sought to emulate traits rather than dig deeper to examine themselves.
So, what is the difference between a manager and a leader? Here’s what I wrote back then:
A manager helps a team achieve its tasks with empathy. They are great communicators, and while they may not be mentors themselves, they can facilitate mentorship and coaching. They are accountable, listen carefully, never blame, and have an attention to detail.
A leader inspires greatness with empathy. They are great communicators, but exceptionally able to communicate direction and vision. They mentor, coach, and challenge the status quo. They question, have an attention to detail, never blame, but are ready to accept blame.
I would now add more to this:
A manager excels in what is known. They are able to forge a path to greatness with the items, people, and knowledge they have at hand. Their strength lies in the ability to carefully consider what is at hand and drive away what is unknown. The best managers deliver every time.
A leader excels in the unknown. They are able to forge something out of nothing, find meaning in ambiguity, belief in chaos, and drive a north star that is inspirational despite the path being hazy. Their ability to find a path against all odds and take risks can save the day.
You probably read this much like anyone reads any self-help piece, with the internal question of “how does this relate to me?” You might already be thinking that one set of traits is better than the other, with a voice sounding in your mind: “Oh yes, I’m THE best leader,” or vice versa.
The truth is much more subtle and often what we don’t want to hear.
Just like extraversion and introversion, people are rarely singularly managers who excel in the operationally known or singularly leaders forging a path across an untamed jungle. Despite how I have framed it above, life rarely is as stark as the short story I wrote about this, “To the lands of milk and honey.”
At different times of your life, in diverse circumstances, and in varying social groupings, you will be a stronger manager or a stronger leader. The key to success is trying to understand what traits you exhibit of the two and to understand when to be your best version of a manager and when to be your best version of a leader. It is also the case, that managing and leading in the “known” is far easier than managing and leading in the “unknown”. Like water finds its way down the easiest ground, so do we fall prey to that which is the easiest challenge.
The perils lie when you go to any extreme and cannot pull back. Let me share a story when I failed at this at the tender age of barely twenty.
A long time ago, when working as the co-Editor at the student newspaper, The Muse, I had this dream that we could take the weekly newspaper and make it into a twice-weekly newspaper, maybe one day into a daily. I remember passionately convincing people that this was a great idea. I think it might have been inspired by the editorial staff going to see the movie The Paper. The truth is, we pushed this idea, led the change, and for two weeks, we produced shorter versions of the newspaper twice a week. I think here, as at other times in my life, I was acting with a very dogmatic push toward the unknown.
The reality, however, would be reflected later that year when we did our performance reviews. We had absolutely succeeded in doing a twice-weekly newspaper, but in the process, I had worn everyone down and burned people out. I would argue I had been a poor manager. The experiment was never to be repeated again, and my dream of a daily newspaper died.
In many ways, this story exemplifies startup CEOs and founders. We excel in the unknown—the crazy, the ridiculous. The problem is that leading in the unknown, being inspirational, can only get you so far. But I have also found that being the opposite doesn’t work in business either. If you only ever operate in the “known,” if you must have certainty on where you are going, if operations and ensuring everything is working like a machine dominate, you lose the imagination and the creativity. In the end, you might have a well-defined and executed grandfather clock, but you’ve missed the reason why you should take your grandfather clock and put it on someone’s wrist.
Our need in business to classify others and ourselves as “managers” and “leaders” leads to some interesting and bizarre behaviors. For example, we give people titles like “Engineering Manager” and “Team Lead.” I would argue that in most companies, they functionally mean the same thing in a Product or Engineering department. People with these titles are trying to achieve a good outcome with group work in a development team, hopefully as independently as possible. Typically, these positions are accountable for how the team performs.
Words and titles matter, no matter how much I wish they didn’t. When people think of themselves either as a manager or a leader, but not both, you end up with interesting, usually not great, outcomes. I’ve noticed that calling someone an Engineering Manager sometimes creates all the behaviors of a people manager and none of the behaviors of a team leader. I’ve seen the opposite in calling people “Team Leads.” Many people I know would argue with me, but in most businesses, I have witnessed more “managers” than “leaders.”1
In my opinion, a truly great person is one who can delve into themselves and understand their behaviors that drive operational excellence and can elevate themselves to working in the unknown and driving leadership. I’m personally continuing to work on both sides of myself.
Today, more than ever, we are in a state of massive business and societal disruption. The norms of trade, development, software, climate—pretty much everything is being thrown out the window. The pace of the unknown is increasing.
Today, more than ever, we need managers that deliver on promises our businesses need to be successful. But I would also argue that today, more than ever, we need to ensure that we have people ready to work in that unknown, ready to drive change when needed, and learn to inspire and set direction. This is not something that comes from a self-help book; this is not something that comes from “management/leadership” training. This is something that comes from you stepping outside of your own comfort zone and embracing change.
So what are you? A manager or a leader? I hope you are both, and because there are perils in being only one or the other, learn how to lead to win and not lead us over a cliff.
As an aside: On balance, and this is my personal preference, I would rather you “lead” than purely manage mechanistically for the sake of overseeing a happy bunch of people.