Are you a Manager or a Leader ?

I have been going through a lot of mess lately. It has been a tiring week, not just physically but mentally as well. Well, this post is not just to rant about my professional issues, but something much deeper. I have been thinking about it for some time, but have not been able to conclude anything. So I thought I’ll bring it up for a larger audience. I am just hoping I get some better clarity and hopefully it will give me some direction.

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Okay, so let me spill the beans. I am trying to understand, what is important, to be a Manager or to be a Leader?? Let me make it clearer, I am not saying that either one of them is wrong, but everyone has their own ways. Let’s understand the differences. 

A leader leads by example. A leader is the one who understands what needs to be done, how it should be done, makes strategy, understands everyone’s weaknesses and strengths and plays according to that to win the game. On the other hand, a Manager is the one who gets the work done. His job is to ensure timely follow ups, proper reporting, right words, final calculations and all.

I am not saying that leader is better or a manager, all I am saying is that although these terms are used interchangeably, there’s a huge difference in both.

Let’s understand both a little better.

1. Team vs Resources: A leader looks at his co-workers as his team, a manager looks at them as resources. You will always see a leader referring his co-workers passionately as a team, however, a manager is always concerned about the resources.

2. Strategy vs Orders: A leader will talk about the strategy. He will talk about a lot of ideas and their executions. He will try a lot of things out of the box and would try to solve complex problems with basic solutions. On the other hand you will almost always find a manager looking for orders or decisions from the Management. A manager will mostly be dependent on external understanding, both for orders as well as execution.

3. Action vs Approvals: When it comes to taking actions, a leader will invariably be available at line of fire with his team. Leaders believe in taking actions and calculated risks, on the other hand, a manager will wait for approvals. You will find a manager running around taking approvals rather than taking actions. A line of fire for a manager is generally in front of the Management and not really with the team 🙂

4. Decisions vs Policies: Just like actions, decisions are also taken mostly by leaders. While a leader will take a decision and find ways to make it right. A manager will mostly talk about policies and procedures. Most managers will try to put decision making either on Management or on Policies and Procedures of the companies.

5. Vision vs Goals: Leaders bring their vision for future on the table. They have the passion to convert their vision into reality. On the other hand, managers will mostly talk about company’s Goals. All their discussions will start and end with Goals. And that too in line with Management strategy.

6. Partners vs Vendors: No business can run without a help from external parties which are called Partners or Vendors again depending upon who they are dealing with 🙂 . A leader will always treat their vendors as partners. They understand and acknowledge that running a business is a team work. And a manager always treats partners as vendors and always thinks as someone who needs his business to survive.

7. Discussions vs Gossips: A leader will always indulge in meaningful discussions and will try to solve other’s problems. A manager will indulge in gossips. They find gossip as a stress buster and enjoy it whenever they can indulge in it.

8. Understanding vs Process flows: Since a manager is mostly policy and procedure driven, they will focus more on creating process flows for everything. On the contrary, a Process flow is just a chart for a leader. The objective of a leader is always to understand the process rather than creating flow charts. A long as a process has a logical flow of information, they don’t really care if it’s there on the flow chart or not.

9. Happiness vs getting work done: Happiness is what drives a leader. They will do whatever makes them and people around them happy. A manager is more concerned about getting the work done. The whole objective of their existence comes down to getting the work done. You will hear them saying “Just get it done by hook or by crook” a lot!

10. Meaningful work vs KRAs: Last but not the least, every leader has a very basic objective in life, which is to do meaningful work. Their whole life revolves around either doing something meaningful or trying to find something meaningful to do. Whereas, A manager’s bible is the KRA sheet. Their whole objective is to either manage their own KRAs or someone else’s.

I am sure you would have recalled some names from your professional lives while reading this and you would be comparing and trying to figure out if what I have written matches or not. Please don’t take me wrong, I am nowhere saying that being a Manager is a bad thing. In fact, Managers are very important to run an organisation. All I am saying is that these are two different breeds and one needs to understand these breeds in order to work with them.

I’ll conclude this by saying “A Manager under a Leader can do wonders for the business, (That’s why most companies look forward to hire MBAs) , but a Leader under a Manager will die a slow death. Cos, the Manager will never let a Leader fly high and think freely.

Please let me know what do you think is better or important and how would you tackle a manager as your boss if you are a leader 🙂

My twitter handle is @kamalkalra84