Adding a few quick thoughts to some of the already good responses below: - Directors are commonly the first level of 'executives' in a large organization. - A

Adding a few quick thoughts to some of the already good responses below: - Directors are commonly the first level of 'executives' in a large organization. - A good director builds the environment, managers, and other leaders for the organization to succeed. - A good director grows the organization's capacity and output by growing its managers and leaders, as well as recruiting others to join. - A team manager's focus is on their team and individual's success; a directors's focus is on their organization's success, which often requires additional knowledge and greater attention to business factors as well as relationships with other organizations (e.g. "political capital"). Going in the other direction: - While the director layer is the common next level of organizational abstraction above managers, or manager-of-managers, there are significant behavioral differences; from lead, manager, and manager of managers to director there is a significant regime difference in the role's responsibilities and area of concern. - A director that acts in the same role of a manager without fulfilling the organization's other needs (e.g. growing the organization's capacity through its managers and teams) will end up becoming the organization's bottleneck. - As with managers, directors that end up needing to be too technically involved with specific technical issues or projects will end up depriving their people of the opportunities and challenges needed for their growth and limit the potential capacity of the organization. - Directors generally should be concerned more with the organization's and functions and capabilities (e.g. ensuring the right teams and people are available to successfully solve problems, versus being directly involved in problem solving, or allowing the organization to require their direct involvement with its day-to-day problems)