Email: What’s the role of a manager & a leader in business? Low success. (Canada)
Many different perspectives exist. Here’s one. Businesses need both managers & leaders to succeed. Traditional view of management is centred around organisational structure. So, managers focus on building plans, maintaining balance, achieving goals. Role of a leader is to drive vision, passion, develop people’s potential. Managers need to embrace current processes & systems to get things done. Leaders adopt futuristic thinking to creatively imagine new ideas.
Managers are great problem solvers, resolve challenges. A leader alters moods, evokes expectations, builds strategic direction. The function of leadership is to create more leaders. “If our actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, become more & achieve more, we are a leader.” Leadership inevitably requires influence in an organisation.
Managers relate to people according to the roles they play due to attention on what get done & a leader’s on how it gets done. Leaders stimulate a feeling of empathy, identity, integrity & community.
Importantly, managers have to be conservators & regulators of an existing order of affairs. Leaders think separate from their environments. Even with great leadership & top managerial talent, there’s no guarantee success will follow. The reason is obviously not the absence of ability or initiative.