What Leaders and Managers Do

In his famous 1992 Harvard Business Review article "Managers and Leaders: Are They Different?", Abraham Zalesnik reveals that there is a distinctive difference between a manager and a leader.  And although they are both highly valuable to the success of any organization their characters, traits, personalities, attitudes towards goals, conception of work, relations with others and even their sense of self all tend to be very different.  For example it is in a manager's personality to embrace rationality, control and problem solving.  Thus managers tend to thrive on persistence, analytical ability hard work and intelligence.  Leaders tend to feed off visions, strategies and direction and tend to excel in selecting great managers to execute their plans.  Goals for manages are problems that need to be solved and thus, goals become impersonal and passive to them.  Leaders on the other hand, tend to shape these goals and hence, are active towards them as Zalenski writes "shaping ideas instead of responding to them".  Managers tend to favor solutions that are in balance and compromise among conflicting values whereas leaders embrace conflict.  While managers are risk avert and tend to like practicality and predictability, leaders on the other hand have a much higher degree of risk tolerance and embrace change and excitement over predictability.  Because both, management and leadership are essential for organizational success, a balance then must bet struck between the two.  Furthermore, the job and actions of the two must be fundamentally different.  What then should be the focus and role of the leader?

In answering the above question, I have found a 1990 article by John P. Kotter, (What Leaders Really Do) to be very helpful.  According to Kotter, a leader must focus the majority of his or her time in the three following areas: 1) setting direction; 2) aligning people; and 3) motivating people.  Many times leaders tend to act as good managers in any of these three roles and loose effectiveness as a result.  For example, instead of setting a direction they get too personally involved in planning and budgeting; instead of aligning people, they tend to organize and staff; and instead of motivating people they tend to control them and problem solve.

According to Kotter, the first role of the leader is to set a direction.  Any organization without a sound sense of direction will fail.   In any business or organization, sound plans could be established; realistic and achievable goals could be developed by all departments; execution of the goals and plans could be successful and morale could be lifted; but if the organization is going in the wrong direction maximum results will never be achieved.  Management then could be doing everything right and executing to perfection but if there is a failure in leadership, the organization will end up in the wrong destination.  It is the leadership role then to hold the compass and navigate the organization in the right direction.  According to Kotter, the function of leadership is to "produce change" and "setting the direction of that change is fundamental to leadership". Planning then (budgetary, resources, etc) become a management function.  Only once an organization has a clear direction, can a management properly execute the plan that has been laid out.  Leaders must analyze data, the business environment, micro and macro economic patterns and relationships to lead to the necessary changes in their business.  Leaders then come up with visions and strategies while managers cope with plans to execute on those strategies and directions.  Steven Covey also makes a clear distinction of the leader in this role: "Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things".

Kotter writes that it is a leaders function to "align people" versus organizing them and staffing.    Organizing and staffing are functions of organizational structure and design - hiring the right people to do the job; developing a reporting system that is effective; providing training and development for all those who need it; deciding how much authority to delegate and providing economic incentives to the work force.  Although Kotter states that these are managerial functions, I would argue that selecting the key people to do the right job should also be on any leader's priority list.  But I must agree with Kotter that aligning people is just as important.  Whereas organizing and staffing are a function of organizational structure, aligning is a function of effective communication.   Aligning is getting the entire organization to focus and work on the right things so that everybody is shooting for the right target.  Hence aligning becomes a communication challenge to not only employees but also suppliers, customers and all other key stake holders in the organization.  In this function, the leader through effective communication must act like a magnet aligning all the metal pieces to face south, north, east or west depending on the strategy and vision that she has set.  This may require constant review of key initiatives and goals, effective communication with all stake holders and a relentless focus on the set vision and strategy.  Leaders will vary on communication style - words, symbols, acts, etc but the means should serve one purpose:  getting people to comprehend "a vision of an alternative future".  Once people are aligned it is far simpler for a manager to organize, staff and solve problems that come up during the execution phase of any plan.

The last key role of a leader as described by Kotter is motivating people and while managers tend to control, leaders on the contrary must focus on motivating the task force on executing the right vision and strategy.  Direction setting identifies a path for movement and change; alignment gets people moving down the stated path; motivation ensures that employees or stake holders have the energy necessary to break through barriers and obstacles throughout that path.  Management is doing things right and setting standards, processes and procedures to ensure efficiency and effectiveness.  Thus, it is imperative that management measures data, controls outcomes and targets and reports them to the rest of the management team and employees to ensure that the team is performing to the best of their ability.  It is imperative then that management regulates and controls in order to ensure controls in quality and planning.  Leadership is not about control but rather, motivating, inspiring and energizing a team to fulfill a vision and mission that is larger than themselves.  Thus value congruency in any organization is highly important.  For example, it is very difficult to motivate employee who's values are not "in sink" or congruent with that of an organization.  Intrinsic motivation then (intellectual, appraisal, achievement, moral, etc) become much more powerful in many cases than external motivation (money).  It is the leader's job to tap into the intrinsic motivators of any team to excite them towards the company's vision.  Leaders will vary in their motivational style but good leaders tend to motivate people in a way that they make the vision appealing and relevant to the audience that they are addressing.  This tends to make the work that individuals are doing important.  Other good leaders tend to naturally motivate by involving people in how to achieve the vision; by supporting the employees' efforts to realizing the vision through feedback and most importantly by recognizing success at every level.  But if the motivation is not intrinsically focused (mind, heart and spirit) it is bound to not be nearly as effective and the vision risks the chance of becoming a mere abstract or written document.

Whether great leaders spend most of their time setting a direction, aligning and motivation people is unknown.  But it is certain that most great leaders do all of the above three really well.  Managers on the other hand tend to be much better at planning, organizing and controlling.  It is true that a balance between the two is imperative for the success of any organization.  Successful leaders however know the difference between managing and leading, and tend to focus their time in setting direction, aligning and motivating the team to strive for the right vision.  That other chores and duties of their job come about and take up part of a leader's day is obviously a fact but if a leader focuses his or her attention to the three traits explained above, they are much more likely to succeed and have an organization that will be more likely to succeed in the future as well.

References

1. J.P. Kotter, What Leaders Really Do, HBR December, 2001
2. A. Zalesnik. Managers and Leaders: Are They Different, HBR March - April, 1992
3. S.R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, (New York: Free Press, 1989), p. 101