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Leaders vs Managers

Managers and LeadersLet's take a look at the difference in personality styles between a manager and a leader:

  • Managers emphasize rationality and control, are problem-solvers (focusing on goals, resources, organization structures, or people), often ask the question, "What problems have to be solved, and what are the best ways to achieve results so that people will continue to contribute to this organization?" Managers are persistent, tough-minded, hard-working, intelligent, analytical, tolerant, and have goodwill toward others.
  • Leaders are perceived as brilliant, but sometimes lonely. They achieve self-control before they try to control others, can visualize a purpose and generate value in work, and are imaginative, passionate, non-conforming risk-takers.

Managers and leaders have very different attitudes toward goals: 

  • Managers adopt impersonal, almost passive, attitudes toward goals, decide upon goals based on necessity instead of desire and are therefore deeply tied to their organization's culture, and tend to be reactive since they focus on current information.
  • Leaders tend to be active since they envision and promote their ideas instead of reacting to current situations, shape ideas instead of responding to them, have a personal orientation toward goals, and provide a vision that alters the way people think about what is desirable, possible, and necessary.

Now let's look at managers' and leaders' conceptions of work.

  • Managers view work as an enabling process, establish strategies and makes decisions by combining people and ideas, continually coordinate and balance opposing views, are good at reaching compromises and mediating conflicts between opposing values and perspectives, act to limit choice, and tolerate practical, mundane work because of a strong survival instinct which makes them risk-averse.
  • Leaders develop new approaches to long-standing problems and open issues to new options. They first use their vision to excite people and only then do they develop choices that give those images substance, focus people on shared ideals and raise their expectations, and work from high-risk positions because of strong dislike of mundane work.

Managers and leaders have very different relations with others: 

  • Managers prefer working with others, report that solitary activity makes them anxious, are collaborative, maintain a low level of emotional involvement in relationships, attempt to reconcile differences, seek compromises, and establish a balance of power, relate to people according to the role they play in a sequence of events or in a decision-making process, focus on how things get done, maintain controlled, rational, and equitable structures, and may be viewed by others as inscrutable, detached, and manipulative.
  • Leaders maintain inner perceptiveness that they can use in their relationships with others, relate to people in intuitive, empathetic way, focus on what events and decisions mean to participants, attract strong feelings of identity and difference or of love and hate, and create systems where human relations may be turbulent, intense, and at times even disorganized.

The Self-Identity of managers versus leaders is strongly influenced by their past:

  • Managers report that their adjustments to life have been straightforward and that their lives have been more or less peaceful since birth, have a sense of self as a guide to conduct and attitude which is derived from a feeling of being at home and in harmony with their environment, see themselves as conservators and regulators of an existing order of affairs with which they personally identify and from which they gain rewards, report that their role harmonizes with their ideals of responsibility and duty, perpetuate and strengthen existing institutions, and display a life development process that focuses on socialization. This socialization process prepares them to guide institutions and maintain the existing balance of social relations.
  • Leaders often have not had an easy time of it as their lives are marked by a continual struggle to find some sense of order. They do not take things for granted and are not satisfied with the status quo, they report that their sense of self is derived from a feeling of profound separateness, may work in organizations but never feel as though they belong to them, report that their sense of self is independent of work roles, memberships, or other social indicators of social identity, seek opportunities for change, support change, find their purpose is to profoundly alter human, economic, and political relationships, and display a life development process which focuses on personal mastery. This process compels them to struggle for psychological and social change.

 Conclusion 
As you can see, managers and leaders are very different animals. It is important to remember that there are definite strengths and weaknesses in both types of individuals. Managers are very good at maintaining the status quo and adding stability and order to our culture. However, they may not be as good at instigating change and envisioning the future. On the other hand, leaders are very good at stirring people's emotions, raising their expectations, and taking them in new directions (both good and bad). However, like artists and other gifted people, leaders often suffer from neuroses and have a tendency toward self-absorption and preoccupation.

References:
• Small Business Administration

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