Kapil Edke explains how leaders are different from managers in the following paragraphs.
Coming straight to the point,
what is the difference between leaders and managers? Well, lot of opinions have
been expressed already on this topic and looks like a cliché. But it’s actually
not. And that’s because the answer to this question is not simple, straight
forward or even unique. The answer would depend on the person, the context and
the situation.
Consider the game of cricket. The
captain of the cricket team leads the team. He is the leader. The manager of the
team is a separate guy who looks after facilities, traveling arrangements, tour
programme etc. Therefore, while the leader in this case looks after setting the
goal, selecting the playing eleven, deciding the strategy and guiding the team
members in achieving the common goal, the manager looks after peripheral issues
which would facilitate the team while dealing with off the field issues.
Now consider the situation in
office. The manager is someone who gets the work done from his junior
colleagues. He would prioritize the issues, distribute the work in his team
members, monitor their progress and would be responsible for the deliverables.
Leader is someone who does all this, but would be responsible for setting the
mission and vision of the team, setting the short term and long term goals,
guiding the team (not just monitoring the members) in reaching the goal. While
the manager would tell his members, “do it”, the leader would say, “let us do
it”. Thus, he would be one among the teammates and yet would be different from
them.
Finally, consider in the context
of politics. During election times, the campaign manager would be responsible
for arranging the rallies and road shows, media and publicity, fund raising,
transportation arrangements etc. On the other hand, the leader would be
responsible for deciding the party’s strategy coherent with its ideology,
disseminating speeches and asking for votes.
What are the common
characteristic of a leader we can deduct from the above three examples? The
leader is also a manager, but with far wider role. He is the one who sets
vision, mission and goals of the team and guides the team members in reaching
that goal. It is said that managers are trained while leaders are borne and it
is true to some extent as we see a dearth of good leaders around a lot of times
but good managers are not that difficult to find!!!
