4 ms·

>Leadership is essentially setting a vision: it's setting a direction people want to follow. >Management is about ensuring people are doing the right things.

>Leadership is essentially setting a vision: it's setting a direction people want to follow. >Management is about ensuring people are doing the right things. This is all completely incoherent to me. What are "the right things"? What is "setting a vision"? It really sounds like you just listened to some motivational speakers. It's just silliness. Parent is exactly right. You can't do any of these things well and sustainably without doing both, and taking responsibility for both. Trying to do one or the other is just a scam.

exmadscientist 3y ago
I think that the other side of this argument is basically that management is tactics and leadership is strategy. They are kinda-sorta-distinguishable, but only by virtue of the labels we choose, and they are always two faces of the same coin. This tracks with my experience: I have worked places where the day-to-day was fine (management) but the year-to-year was not (leadership).
Nevermark 3y ago
You can be a leader in a large organization without managing anyone. And when overseeing a group of people in static but important cookie cutter functional roles, you can be a great manager of people, without taking them anywhere new. Those are the extremes, but there are two poles. Even if most influential people in an organization have varying degrees of responsibility and talent for each.
MattPalmer1086 3y ago
Hmmm, I have not explained it very well then. Management is a job function. If someone has decided that X needs to happen, then a managers job is to ensure that X happens. They may or may not have influenced whether X is the thing that needs to happen. Leadership is convincing people to go in a certain direction. It can happen on many different levels, from the overall direction of a company, to choosing certain technologies to use, to adopting some practices, or whatever. It's more of a quality that anyone can have, rather than a job function.
- danielscrubs 3y ago
  I’ve heard another definition, if you can and will help out your teammates with the assigned tasks, then you are a leader. If you are just doing the “meta”, you are a manager.

exmadscientist 3y ago

I think that the other side of this argument is basically that management is tactics and leadership is strategy. They are kinda-sorta-distinguishable, but only by virtue of the labels we choose, and they are always two faces of the same coin. This tracks with my experience: I have worked places where the day-to-day was fine (management) but the year-to-year was not (leadership).

Nevermark 3y ago

You can be a leader in a large organization without managing anyone. And when overseeing a group of people in static but important cookie cutter functional roles, you can be a great manager of people, without taking them anywhere new. Those are the extremes, but there are two poles. Even if most influential people in an organization have varying degrees of responsibility and talent for each.

MattPalmer1086 3y ago

Hmmm, I have not explained it very well then. Management is a job function. If someone has decided that X needs to happen, then a managers job is to ensure that X happens. They may or may not have influenced whether X is the thing that needs to happen. Leadership is convincing people to go in a certain direction. It can happen on many different levels, from the overall direction of a company, to choosing certain technologies to use, to adopting some practices, or whatever. It's more of a quality that anyone can have, rather than a job function.

danielscrubs 3y ago
I’ve heard another definition, if you can and will help out your teammates with the assigned tasks, then you are a leader. If you are just doing the “meta”, you are a manager.