The difference between leadership and management

Hello and welcome to the first episode of How to Lead, the podcast for CEO Founders business owners managing directors and actually leaders of all sorts who just want to lead with the perfect balance of empathy and authority. In today's episode we're going to be talking about the difference between leadership and management. I'm Kate Waterfall Hill and I'll be sharing some ideas from over 30 years of working in business and leadership development.

Before we start the show here's a reminder that if you want to stop screaming into your pillow every time you think about team management and you'd like to learn how to become a better leader sign up to my free weekly newsletter at waterfallhill.co.uk.

This episode is going to be a little bit of a foundation stone should I say of what leadership is all about what is the difference between leadership and management I thought it was a good place to kick off so first of all we're going to hear from Linda and see what she has to say.

"What's the difference between a leader and a manager? Um, well in this company, the leaders are on the senior leadership team and the managers are on the management team. Yeah. Oh, you mean what's the actual difference… um well I suppose the leaders are the ones that sort of know William personally or the people like me who've been here forever and just get promoted out of default, you know, last man standing that sort of thing. Oh, you mean the skills, what's the difference in the skill set? Um, yeah so the a a leader probably should be setting some sort of vision, you know, purpose, a reason for doing what you're doing and a manager's bit more about the detail you know sort of setting out the exact um expectations and deadlines and things like that. Yeah, that's, that's the difference. Which one am I? Um, neither really, no. I haven't really got time, I haven't got time to set a vision or a purpose on anything. I've got hundreds of emails and loads of meetings to go to. I'm really stretched yeah no, haven't got time for all that nonsense um and in terms of management, I can't really help them because I don't really know what they do, you know. All the people in my team you know it's also quite a lot of detail. So what generally happens is, I get given a task by the senior leadership team, I bring it down to my team and tell them that, you know, this task needs doing and they sort of go off and do it, work it out for themselves so yeah no, they're on their own really with me. I mean I'm here when they want to moan, which they do quite often about the resources and the deadlines being too tight and things like that, and I don't really do anything with the moaning other than go home and moan to Dave. Yeah… is that the answer to your question?"

So Linda had quite a good go at it, didn't she, trying to define the difference between leadership and management. Sadly she's neither a leader nor a manager because she hasn't got time or inclination. And I've got to say, I do feel sorry for the hapless husband Dave who gets to hear her moaning at the end of every day. So this is a question I get quite a lot in coaching and particularly in leadership training: what is the difference between a leader and a manager?

Well, I don't think they're mutually exclusive - in actual fact, I think there's probably a third element as well which is the coach, but I'll talk about that in more detail in a minute. But what is a leader? Is it the title? I don't think so no I think a leader is just about anybody who wants to influence positive change, who has an eye on the outcome, something they want to achieve, and has the ability to influence either people around them or the circumstances around them to make that outcome happen. Anybody who wants some sort of constructive involvement in what's going on around them can be a leader, whether you're an individual contributor, a team member (you don't have to have an official leadership position and it might be that you're not actually working at all but you're still influencing outcomes all around you), whether it's how you speak to an supplier on the phone, how you receive a delivery at the door, how you speak to people in your local cafe. No, the idea is that we are all people of influence should we choose and you can and will have a positive impact on those around you and can create a relationship of trust and respect so others want to be on your side. It's about having those skills and working out how to do it. So I'm not necessarily talking about being a leader in a traditional sense. It can just be how you influence those around you.

But today we're talking about leaders in the workplace someone who's responsible for others and needs to deploy both leadership and management skills. So let's look at both in more detail.

To my mind the leader is all about the vision: setting the idea of the purpose and the common goal and the shared vision of the organisation or the team that they're a leader of. And if you can do that, you know so if you can inspire other people to see what contribution they're making and what the point of it all is, then that's just a fantastic thing to do as a leader.

And as a manager, it's more about setting out the details. So it's explaining your expectations, the detail I guess. Being a manager is about setting out the outcomes that you're looking for, but not necessarily telling people how to do it. Certainly what to do, but not necessarily how. So being a manager is about being clear on your expectations of the outcome. You need to set out the deliverables, the resources that they're going to get, the support that they might receive from you as a manager, and these are important things for a manager to set out.

So the two different things uh that we've got here are: leadership setting out the why but the manager setting out the what.

And my third element, my "Secret Source" (not so secret really since I am a leadership coach), is that I'm very fond of coaching and this is a technique to influence positive change and influence behaviour is absolutely brilliant. So as a manager or a leader, having coaching as part of your armoury is really brilliant tool. And what you can do with coaching isn't to always be the one that comes up with the solutions - you're not always the one working out what the problem is or what the issue is. You're actually empowering other people to do so. So the leader's setting out the why; and the manager's setting out the what; the coach enables the how. And that means, by asking good questions and listen listening actively to the other person, by leaning in and yet giving people space at the same time, you can actually elicit the outcome - the right outcome - and the right way of doing things from that person.

And if the other person is coming up with a way of doing it as they're working out the step by steps of what they're going to do to achieve the outcome and the expectations that you very clearly set, they're much more likely to be invested in that outcome. They're much more likely to want to make it work because it's something that they've dreamt up, they've thought up, you know, rather the you foisting it upon them.

So I'm not talking about the leader, the manager, and the coach being different hats you wear at different times - these are hats that you wear all the time, you know, so you're using these techniques in the same conversation. You're setting out the why, you're also setting out the what, and then you're coaching the how. So the leadership element is the ability to inspire, to influence, to guide individuals or a group towards a common vision or goal. This isn't necessarily limited to formal positions of responsibility, you can exhibit these leadership skills in any organisation at any level or even outside an organisation.

And the leaders possess a range of skills often it's vision obviously, um but as well as that, they can have other attributes you know. Some are very charismatic, you don't have to be, but certainly you need emotionally intelligence, the ability to listen, and empathise, and to take on board what other people are saying in other people's perspectives (because they often come up with the best answer), and also have that ability to inspire. And that's about bringing other people with you on the journey.

The manager on the other hand is more about the detail. So it's about the planning, the organising, the controlling, the resources. They're really intent on achieving specific goals for the organisation or their team. Managers are responsible for the day-to-day operations, allocating resources making decisions.

I'm interrupting myself briefly to let you know that my new book, "How to Lead", is out now. It's filled with simple proven methods I've gathered over my 30 years as a managing director and then coach of over 200 leaders. So if you're ready for straightforward, real world approaches to leading with purpose, this book is for you. You can grab a PDF or a Kindle version from my website or a paperback edition from Amazon both links are in the show notes. Now let's get back to the show!

The manager is more involved with overseeing the day-to-day operations, the planning the organising, controlling resources, making sure the team achieves the overall objectives. More focused on the tasks, the processes, the projects, the deliverables. They're also there to maintain order and stability.

So both of these skills, leadership and management, need to be deployed simultaneously. Obviously, if you're at the very top of the organisation, then you really should be focused on setting out the vision and letting other people, managers beneath you hopefully if you've got them in the organisation, setting out the what. But it might be that you need to coach your managers so they're able to manage and coach their teams.

Just going back to the coaching side of things, the reason I love it so much is because it has so many many benefits - not only for you as a leader and a manager but also for your team. It empowers your team, it makes them feel much more engaged and motivated, and for you, it lightens your load. You don't have to come up with all the answers, you know. You need to come up with some really good questions, yes, to let other people work out what the answers are, but that's so much easier than actually trying to solve everything yourself, because you can end up just being a bottleneck if you don't watch out.

Coaching really encourages a problem-solving mindset in your team if you're asking them questions to evoke some sort of understanding, to help them see things differently from a different perspective, or with a different mindset, they're much more likely to be innovative and creative and have that sense of psychological safety they're not going to be judged for coming up with ideas or asking questions or admitting mistakes. This is a really important part of being a leader and a manager.

Coaching also really encourages people to be more collaborative and work as a team. It encourages a positive attitude to challenges and to see mistakes or missteps as learning opportunities, rather than, you know, issues to be defensive about. People are much more likely to work towards a positive outcome if they've had a part in creating the process or the solution.

And coaching enables you to delegate more so that you've got more time to think strategically and actually behave like the leader you want to be. So whilst I'm a huge fan of coaching and enabling others to find the solutions and to work out the how they should be doing things themselves, I am aware that sometimes, it's just not possible, you know. You have to give them a process to follow, there's health and safety, or legislation, or just a way that your business works, because you need to be consistent, you need people to follow the same process so there's uniformity. And I get that but where possible if you can involve your team in the creation of the new process, then they're much more likely to be supportive of it and make sure that it works.

I've just scratched the surface today on how fantastic coaching can be and in future episodes I'll be covering coaching in a lot more detail. But I do hope this episode of How to Lead has given you a flavour of the sorts of things we'll be covering on this podcast and also given you some ideas for the difference between leadership management - and that extra secret source of being a great coach.

So just to summarise, leadership is setting out the why. The management is setting out the what. And the coach enables the how.

Thank you for listening to this episode of How to Lead. Please do subscribe and follow for more and make sure you don't miss any future episodes that are coming up. If you can like and leave a review, I'd be so grateful.

Let's spread the word far and wide that How to Lead is worth a listen. If you have any suggestions for future episodes, please do let me know. My contact details in the show notes and remember you don't have to do this alone. You too can enjoy being an authoritative yet empathetic leader - all it takes is for you to make a decision to be more intentional about how you interact with others. You might need some good tips and advice along the way and maybe even a great guide, but until next time listen more, advise less, and lead well.