Every successful organization needs both managers and leaders, but understanding how the roles differ isn’t as easy as it looks. To find out more, we talked to two experts from St. 365比分网电竞 in Austin, Texas. Tom Sechrest is the director of the Master of Science in 领导 and Change 程序 and David Altounian is the director of the 工商管理硕士 程序. Together, they shared their ideas about what makes a manager and what makes a leader.
1. 管理者做事正确. 领导者做正确的事情.
Warren Bennis, a pioneer in the field of leadership studies, famously boiled down the difference between managers with bumper-sticker brevity. “That difference is not intended to be a pejorative statement about managers,” explains Sechrest. “It’s important for a manager to focus on systems, structures and maintaining what’s already there. That view is a shorter-term view,” he says. “领导者着眼长远.”
2. Managers hold their power through a title. Leaders hold their power with the help of others.
Managers hold sway thanks to their position on the organizational chart, but great leaders can be found at every level of a company. A front-line worker whose tireless work and exceptional attitude motivates her colleagues to increase their own efforts may be a better leader than her technically-more-powerful boss who sits behind a desk doing paperwork, 说Altounian. “People will willingly follow leaders into the trenches, 不是因为他们必须这么做, but because leaders inspire loyalty, 自信和努力.”
3. 管理者关注细节. 领导者关注大局.
The work of a business happens at multiple levels, from big-picture strategy to day-to-day operations. In any successful business, both kinds of work need to be exceptional. “A manager might ask ‘How do you do it and when do you need it?’ and a leader asks ‘What are you doing and why are you doing it?’”塞克雷斯特说.
4. 管理人员遵循严格的规则. Leaders find ways to work creatively within constraints.
Sechrest often sees managerial-type thinking when employees learn about a promising new tool or tactic but discard it when it doesn’t exactly fit their company’s needs. “I’ve heard lots of people says things like ‘This is a neat idea, but it would never happen where I’m working,’”塞克雷斯特说. “但当你推一点, 他们会说‘好吧, I might be able to implement it with the people who work directly with me,’”这种重构, 说Sechrest, is part of the journey from manager to leader: finding a way to think beyond typical constraints to get to a new and better solution.
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Erin Peterson is a freelance writer.