Managers vs leaders. How to differentiate?

Hi, future entrepreneurs! 🙂 

 Before answering this question, first of all, we all have to know about leaders and managers. We need to understand the meaning of “leadership” and “management” themself. 

Leadership actually means the action of leading a group of people or an organization; the state or position of being a leader. Leader is the highest position in an organization. When we first heard the word ‘leader’ what usually comes in our mind is a person that is leading the group, being the front runner in the group, having authority, have followers,  and have people to work for them. The people in the group are working as what the leaders want. Dwight D. Eisenhower said that, “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.” This theory indirectly explain the authority that a leader has. What he wants to achieve, can be achieved with the help of the team.

In the other hand, to differentiate leaders and managers, lets take a look at “management” itself. Management means the process of dealing with or controlling things or people; the responsibility for and control of a company or similar organization; the people in charge of running a company or organization. The word “managing” is mostly related to controlling, planning, organizing, and directing.  In being a manager, your authority is not as dominating as leaders, but a good manager is a backbone of a successful organization. According to Harold Koontz, “Management is an art of getting things done through and with the people in formally organized groups. It is an art of creating an environment in which people can perform and individuals and can co-operate towards attainment of group goals.”

After knowing the meaning of them both, now let’s find out further. Managers and leaders are actually related to each other. Managers need to be able to lead their team and every single members to work well, and leaders also need to be able to manage how their team work, manage every activities to achieve the goals of the team. But then, what are the differences between both of them? It can be seen in many aspects and lets see each one.

Generally, as what I have mentioned before, leaders have people that work for them, but managers have people to work with them. The job of leaders are more like leading people in a group, lead how they work together to achieve or to reach the goals of that group. But managers, what they need to do is managing the progress or the thing that the team are working on, controlling each day to day operation, and maintaining every single task so the organization can run well. It can be simply concluded that leaders are more focusing on the members of the group  but managers focusing on the work of the organization and the organization itself. Or we can also say that leaders build a team, and managers establish the team.

In being a leader, the things that need to be considered are the members themself. Their personality, how they work, their feeling towards the work even how they feel about you being a leader. But the things that need to be considered in being a manager is your organization’s goals or the job of each part of the team. Another differences can be seen in how leaders and maagers keep doing their job well. Leaders, what they need to do is getting people to understand and believe to your vision and mission as the leader. People need to be sure to work with you to achieve your goals. While managers, need to be able administering and making sure that each day’s goals are happening as how they should be.

In the relation between the managers or the leaders with their people in the team, leaders are usually seen as the example or a role model in that group. Leaders have to be the reflection of the whole team. They need to have a good attitude, good character and also professionalism so they can lead their people well and that is why leaders are also the role models. But managers, they actually also need to have that kind of good attitude or professionalism but that does not as important as in being a leader. What matters more in management is the way you manage something, the way you control the team so it can run well and reach the goals as how it planned. 

Lets take an easy example to make this clear. We have this one engine machine as the organization. It seems like leading is making sure every part of the machine work as how it supposed to be, but managing is making sure the machine itself can work properly.

Leaders, usually seek for an achievement but managers seek for a result. In working, risks are always there and can’t be avoided so leaders have to be brave enough to take it while managers, need to be able to minimize it.

            Now it’s clearly can be seen what are the differences between a leader and a manager. But somehow, you can’t only choose one, to be a leader or a manager. You can’t only be a good leader without having a good managing skills because you may have an authority to direct or tell people to do your wants but it would be useless without an ability to organize and control them. Or vice versa, the way you organize your team won’t really matter if you don’t have a leader personality.

If you want to be a successful business owner or entrepreneur, you need to be both strong leader and manager at the same time. You have to make sure every part in your machine doing its job properly so your machine work smoothly as how it should be. The keys of it are, work professional by combining them both, get your team well-organized to follow yourself towards your vision of success. For whoever reading this, good luck in being a future successful entrepreneur! 🙂