I agree that a manager's role is to cause work to be done. I think the point of the article, though, is that there are different ways of accomplishing this. Y

I agree that a manager's role is to cause work to be done. I think the point of the article, though, is that there are different ways of accomplishing this. You can cause work to be done by inspiring your workers, giving them a comfortable, fun place to work where they feel free to experiment and do good work. You can also cause work to be done by telling people what to do, making it clear what the consequences are for not completing work, and restraining people. In the last year, I've basically worked under both types of managers, and I can say that, generally speaking, my productivity is much higher, and therefore more work gets done, when I feel engaged and that my thoughts and ideas are valued and that I'm helping drive the success of the company, vs. being told what to do and feeling like my opinions and ideas aren't very valuable. I think what's difficult is that this stuff isn't very cut-and-dry; there are times, as a manager, when it might be easy to give your workers a ton of freedom and to really trust them with responsibility. There are other times when it may not be a good idea. As a manager, you can't always be "inspiring"; sometimes you just need to get stuff done. Personally, I believe that if I'm involved and responsible for big decisions, I'm inherently more engaged because I'm directly involved with the success/failure of the decision.