Descriptors for Leaders are “change, long-term, vision, set direction, charisma, passion, proactive, excitement, new roads …”. The equivalent for the manager are “stability, short term, plans detail, authority, control, reactive, or avoid.”
It is clear from the descriptions used that those poor souls that are “only” managers are really a sad lot doing the easy stuff, and they are light-years behind the noble Leaders who sprinkle those around them with their vision and passion and charisma. Tom Peters tells us that “Leaders create more Leaders”. We should all strive to be Leaders at the risk of being left behind as mere managers ...
Well, enough is said and written about those Great Leaders and I want to take a few minutes to praise those that are "only" manager ...
Doing what needs to get done, day in and day out, getting products delivered, fulfilling commitments, following through or solving problem is maybe not material for HBR articles but in the end, that is what a company’s reputation is built upon. When we had to let go of team members, it wasn’t because of their lack of vision or passion or charisma. It was mostly because they couldn’t achieve their objectives, because things were discussed but didn’t get done, plans were made but didn’t get executed, problems were talked about but didn’t get solved or deadlines were repeatedly missed. In other words, they couldn’t fulfill their basic managerial duties. And yet, we were probably sending them to training courses to help them develop their Leadership skills … We should have asked them to read “Execution, the discipline of getting things done” by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan instead.
