What Is the Difference Between Leadership and Management?

Your title makes you a manager. Your people make you a leader. —Bill Campbell

Note: This post is based on an excerpt from the book “The Making of a Manager” by the amazing Julie Zhuo.

I always considered the words “manager” and “leader” to be synonyms. Managers lead, and leaders manage, right? Nope, wrong. “Manager” is a specific role, just as an elementary school teacher and a heart surgeon are specific roles. There are clear principles outlining what a manager does and how their success is measured.

Leadership, on the other hand, is the particular skill of being able to guide and influence other people. Now, a manager who doesn’t know how to influence others isn’t going to be particularly effective at improving the outcomes of their team. So, to be a great manager, one must certainly be a leader.

A leader, on the other hand, doesn’t have to be a manager. Anyone can exhibit leadership, regardless of their role or stature. Think of a store clerk calmly directing shoppers to safety when the screeching tornado bell goes off in a mall. Think of a passionate citizen going door-to-door and convincing neighbors to join them in protesting a recent decision. Think of generations upon generations of mothers and fathers demonstrating to their children what it means to act like a responsible adult.

If you picture your own organization, you can probably come up with many examples of leadership: an individual contributor who surfaces important customer complaints and then coordinates solutions across multiple teams, a team member who rallies a group to work on a new idea, or a veteran employee who is a sought-out oracle of wisdom. If you can pinpoint a problem and motivate others to work with you to solve it, then you’re leading.

Leadership is a quality rather than a job. We are all leaders and followers at different points in our lives. Managers should cultivate leadership not just in themselves but also within their teams. This is very important, as the role of a manager can be given to someone (or taken away), but leadership is not something that can be bestowed. It must be earned. People must want to follow you, and that only happens when they trust you.

You can be someone’s manager, but if that person does not trust or respect you, you will have limited ability to influence them. So, great leaders make for great managers.

The world needs more leaders—individuals who can actually mobilize people to solve important problems plaguing our communities.