{"id":445,"date":"2013-11-13T12:47:49","date_gmt":"2013-11-13T12:47:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bisk-preprod.go-vip.co\/msu\/2018\/05\/10\/bridging-gap-leadership-and-management\/"},"modified":"2019-12-26T14:55:07","modified_gmt":"2019-12-26T14:55:07","slug":"bridging-gap-leadership-and-management","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bisk-preprod.go-vip.co\/msu\/resources\/leadership\/bridging-gap-leadership-and-management\/","title":{"rendered":"Bridging the Gap Between Leadership and Management"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are numerous differences between leadership and management, but Warren Bennis encapsulates them nicely in his groundbreaking 1989 book, “On Becoming a Leader”, explaining, \u201cThe manager does things right; the leader does the right thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many have since extrapolated on Bennis\u2019s work, with the key points usually remaining the same: leaders conceive original ideas while managers implement daily operations; leaders inspire and motivate while managers organize and report; leaders constantly scan the horizon while managers focus on the bottom line. These ideologies usually find managers emerging as uninspired but necessary functionaries, toiling away beneath the far more luminous leaders.<\/p>\n

Leadership and Management Synchrony<\/h2>\n

However, no matter how useful these distinctions have been to business literature and theory, in the real world, it\u2019s unwise to disengage the practice of management from leadership\u00a0or vice versa. Executives who reach the top only to consign themselves\u2014as many have\u2014to acting only as leaders often end up placing an\u00a0impossible strain on their companies, losing touch with daily operations while generating big ideas in isolation. Likewise, managers who fail to become leaders miss out on the opportunities ever-present in a global economy powered by knowledge workers. The most effective executives know when to lead and when to manage, bridging a gap that thought leaders great and small have spent decades establishing.<\/p>\n

In fact, the gap itself may be narrowing. The emergence of the knowledge worker, whose value lies as much in the execution of his or her ideas, has made clear that a more person-centered management style<\/a>, or management infused with the principles of leadership, is necessary for businesses to adapt. Technological innovation and an increasingly interconnected world mean companies across all industries are facing opportunities, many of which initially present as challenges, at an ever-growing rate. The manager of the past, walking a line of workers with a\u00a0clipboard in hand, wouldn\u2019t understand how to capitalize on these fleeting chances.<\/p>\n

Switching Gears Seamlessly<\/h2>\n

But great leaders who also know how to manage don\u2019t need to walk the line with a clipboard. They already possess the manager\u2019s granular knowledge of daily operations, and they never stop striving to learn more. They listen to customers, entry-level employees, even competitors, building a big-picture frame of reference not around abstractions, but around concrete reality as it manifests on the ground. Steve Jobs, for example, was famous for dropping in unexpectedly at Apple stores.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, today\u2019s successful executives are capable of switching gears instantaneously between the manager\u2019s process-oriented eye for detail and the leader\u2019s long-range perspective. In a word, they\u2019re agile, and agile businesses have proven to be the most successful, especially in times of economic change or crisis.<\/p>\n

Venture capitalist and entrepreneur Randy Komisar, who has launched numerous successful tech start-ups over the last quarter century, including Claris Corporation and TiVo, describes business agility as responsiveness to \u201cconstant provocations\u201d in an interview with Fast Company, emphasizing that \u201cthings will change and that\u2019s OK.\u201d It, therefore, stands to reason that our managers and our leaders must be adaptive and committed to personal growth in order to navigate the changing terrain of modern business.<\/p>\n

Leadership is a Team Effort<\/h2>\n

A dedication to learning more about leadership and management<\/a> isn\u2019t exclusive to those at the top. Professionals at any stage in their careers can benefit from making continuous development in both skillsets an ongoing focus. Despite ample literature about the distinction between management and leadership and what makes leaders effective, a drought in agile leadership is currently afflicting the U.S., and only leaders who know how to manage\u2014and are committed to fostering greatness in others\u2014are capable of addressing it. As Warren Bennis famously stated, \u201ctaking charge of your own learning is part of taking charge of your life,\u201d and great leaders simply never stop learning, whether they\u2019ve reached the top of the ladder or are just beginning to climb it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leadership and Management are distinct functions but it is unwise to separate them. Engaging both functions improves motivation, productivity and more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":447,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-leadership"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/bisk-preprod.go-vip.co\/msu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2018\/05\/leadership-and-management-38.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8xwI-7b","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bisk-preprod.go-vip.co\/msu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bisk-preprod.go-vip.co\/msu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bisk-preprod.go-vip.co\/msu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bisk-preprod.go-vip.co\/msu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/60"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bisk-preprod.go-vip.co\/msu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/bisk-preprod.go-vip.co\/msu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7232,"href":"https:\/\/bisk-preprod.go-vip.co\/msu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions\/7232"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bisk-preprod.go-vip.co\/msu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bisk-preprod.go-vip.co\/msu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bisk-preprod.go-vip.co\/msu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bisk-preprod.go-vip.co\/msu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}