The Distinction between Leader and Manager.

The Distinction between Leader and Manager.

By Eng Jayantha Ranatunga
10th April 2013

Most of those who answered the question 5 of the section B paper 2013 March have failed to describe the correct difference between the manager and leader. Many of them have misunderstood that the leader is a super or better manager. They mostly blame the public sector seniority based system for the promotion of executives to manager designations. Therefore they believe only a few will ever become leaders (or better managers as per their understanding).

What is disturbing is most of the young engineers who got it wrong have had the occasion to learn
management as part of their undergraduate training, management development at IESL, and some even
at MBA. It appears that these fundamental differences, well known to management thinkers for over a
century, were never taught to them. Accordingly the fault by and large is not with those youngsters.
I too feel guilty for setting this question which attracted nearly 176 of them in answering it. Most of
them were ignorant of the fact that such a difference even existed. Therefore I thought it is my duty to
write this note.

Henry Fayol a French mining engineer in the 19th century wrote extensively describing the roles of
manager. In the 20th century Warren Bennis, John Kotter, Peter Drucker and Stephon Covey identified
the difference in the roles of Leaders and Managers.
This becomes further clear when one reads about the lives of some of the well-known leaders such as,
Lord Buddha, Akbar the Great, King Asoka, King Dutugamunu, Napoleon Bonaparte, Mahatma Ghandi,
Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela, and General Kobbakaduwa. Even the likes of Adolf Hitler and Maru
Sira, though misguided, were also leaders.

Warren Bennis, in one of his books, “On Becoming a Leader” describes his view on the differences
between managers and leaders as follows:
§ The manager administers; the leader innovates.
§ The manager is a copy; the leader is an original.
§ The manager maintains; the leader develops.
§ The manager focuses on systems and structure; the leader focuses on people.
§ The manager relies on control; the leader inspires trust.
§ The manager accepts reality; the leader investigates it.
§ The manager has a short-range view; the leader has a long-range perspective.
§ The manager asks how and when; the leader asks what and why.
§ The manager has his or her eye always on the bottom line; the leader has his or her eye on the
horizon.
§ The manager imitates; the leader originates.
§ The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it.
§ The manager is the classic good soldier; the leader is his or her own person.
§ The manager does things right; the leader does the right thing.

Another influential thinker who has written on the distinction between management and leadership has
been Harvard Prof John Kotter, an electrical engineering graduate from MIT who authored the book
” What Leaders Really Do”.
John Kotter makes the following observations:
■“Leadership and management are two distinctive and complementary systems of action. Both are
necessary for success in an increasingly complex and volatile business environment.”
■“Most U.S. corporations today are over managed and under led.”
■“Strong leadership with weak management is no better, and is sometimes actually worse, than the
reverse.”
■“Management is about coping with complexity…. Without good management, complex enterprises
tend to become chaotic… Good management brings a degree of order and consistency….”
■“Leadership, by contrast, is about coping with change… More change always demands more
leadership.”
■“Companies manage complexity by planning and budgeting, by organizing and staffing, and by
controlling and problem solving. By contrast, leading an organization to constructive change involves
setting a direction (developing a vision of the future and strategies to achieve the vision), aligning
people, and motivating and inspiring them to keep moving in the right direction.”

On this topic, Jim Estill posted this great quote on his blog, “CEO Blog – Time Leadership” citing a classic
article from Harvard Business Review by Abraham Zaleznik in 1977 that discusses Leaders vs. Managers:
“The difference between managers and leaders, he wrote, lies in the conceptions they hold, deep in the
psyches, of chaos and order. Managers embrace process, seek stability and control, and instinctively try
to resolve problems quickly – sometimes before they fully understand a problem’s significance. Leaders,
in contrast, tolerate chaos and lack of structure and are willing to delay closure in order to understand
the issues more fully in this way, Zalenznik argued, business leaders have much more in common with
artists, scientists and other creative thinkers than they do with managers. Organizations need both
managers and leaders to succeed, but developing both requires a reduced focus on logic and strategic
exercises in favour of an environment where creativity and imagination are permitted to flourish.”
In the end, we need to be good at leading first and managing second, the why and the what, then only,
the how and the when!
In summary
This table summarizes the above (and more) and gives a sense of the differences between being a leader
and being a manager. This is, of course, an illustrative characterization, and there is a whole spectrum
between either ends of these scales along which each role can range. And many people lead and
manage at the same time, and so may display a combination of behaviors.



By Eng Jayantha Ranatunga
10th April 2013