People should not get confused by catchy answers like “A manager does things right, a leader does the right thing.” These sell books but they have no substance.

Managing applies to the effective use of a resource such as money management or supply chain management or what-have-you. People are a resource and they must be managed like any other resource, but obviously the tools are different for each resource.

Leadership applies to people and denotes the sending of value standard messages to people which they then follow/use. Thus we say that they have been “led” in the direction of those value standards. Leadership is therefore one side of the coin called values, the other side being followership.

Any manager who accepts the responsibility of managing people as well as one or more other resources such as production machinery, sales, finances or whatever must be proficient at managing them all. Otherwise, they should not have accepted the job.

To say that “Management is about coping with complexity – it is responsive. Leadership is about coping with change – it too is responsive, but mostly it is proactive.” is so much bull, a catchy group of words without truth. Complexity includes change since change is a constant in everything. To think that leadership is only about change and has nothing to do with the everyday routine is likewise untrue.

Whatever one manages, one must learn the skills and methods required to succeed in that milieu. For most, one can find some very good books that do disclose most or many of the related truths. Unfortunately, for managing people that is not the case. And the vast majority of those who publish have never proven what they profess.

Best regards, Ben
Author “Leading People to be Highly Motivated and Committed”