For years we were taught that management has to do with forecasting, budgeting, planning and controlling. Managers were taught to manage, not to lead.
New supervisors and grizzled management veterans were taught how to assign work to subordinates, how to evaluate their teammates' work, how to counsel people on performance problems and how to hire and fire staff members. Everything we were taught about management assumed that the manager would know what to do and was calling the shots.
These days we understand that the old-fashioned view of a manager's duties is wholly insufficient for the new-millennium workplace.
Responsibility for a team of people and its success -- not to mention each team members' well-being and professional development -- is a big assignment to take on. Leadership has very little to do with controlling, budgeting and so on. It has little overlap with assigning work and evaluating it.
Our traditional view of management is task-based and mechanical. In that worldview, we don't think about topics like "How are my teammates holding up? Are they stressed out? Are they feeling good about the future and about the energy on the team?"
For years we pretended that human energy isn't a factor in a team's success, even though anybody who has ever been on any kind of team knows that the team energy, also known as trust level, is the whole ballgame!
We can use the carrot and the stick to get people to perform for a while but eventually, if they don't care about the mission, about their leader and/or about one another, the team will fracture and lose steam. It's inevitable! Today we know that empathetic, trust-based human leadership is not only the most effective way to lead a team but also the most profitable way to run a company.
Here are five enormous differences between managers and leaders. If you hold a leadership role now or aspire to do so in the future, think about steps you can take in each of these areas.
