Differentiating Leaders from Managers

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!!!