I used to think that leadership was the graduate level of management. As you learn more about people and the skills necessary to manage, you magically become a leader. In reality, it is vital to be both a manager and a leader. Heres a summary of what both look like.

Management basically means to maintain. So as a manager, you come in every day and focus your resources to accomplish objectives. So if you are in manufacturing, you focus on completing a number of widgets each day and make sure that the efforts of your team are aligned to do so. Management is more of a short term focus on immediate goals. Management is really the nuts and bolts of how things get done. If most of your activities during the day involve telling people what to do, then you are managing.

Leadership is the act of inspiring others to want to accomplish long term objectives. Leadership deals much more with emotions. As a leader, you must create a vision of what the future will look like, and inspire your team to perform to a level to accomplish this vision. Leadership does not rely on day by day or even minute by minute direction from a manager. One of the key elements is to link the team members daily activities to this long term vision. Team members see the future and understand how their daily actions will help to create that future. If you spend your time coaching and teaching, then you are most likely leading.

So we all need to carry both the leadership and management hat with us each day. If you only wear the leadership hat, you are probably falling short on the day to day objectives. If you are only wearing the management hat, you are failing to build a long term strategy and your team members will lack passion in what they do.

I hope you all have a successful week.