Success Secrets and Stories
To share management leadership concepts that actually work.
You are responsible for your development as a leader. Don't expect the boss to invest the training budget in your career. Consider this podcast as an investment of time in your career, with a bit of management humor added at the same time.
Success Secrets and Stories
The Essential Distinctions: Leaders vs. Managers in Today's Business World
Join John and Greg as they discuss what truly separates leadership from management? While these terms are often used interchangeably, understanding their fundamental differences could be the key to unlocking your career potential and organizational impact.
Leadership expert Amy Hamilton defines a leader as "someone that inspires others to work together to achieve a shared goal," emphasizing the critical role of vision, persuasion, and communication. The best leaders cope with change, formulate inspirational messages, recognize their weaknesses, and communicate effectively across all stakeholders. By contrast, management revolves around planning budgets, organizing structures, commanding performance, coordinating departments, and controlling outcomes—all essential functions that nonetheless differ from leadership's visionary orientation.
As Stephen Covey brilliantly observed, "Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall." This distinction matters profoundly because employees overwhelmingly prefer working for true leaders rather than mere managers. Cornell University research confirms that teams significantly favor executives demonstrating "prototypical leadership traits," while those stuck in task-focused management routines may find their careers permanently stalled. The transition from manager to leader begins with honest self-reflection, seeking diverse feedback, developing deep empathy for team members' experiences, and most crucially, taking accountability for results whether favorable or not. When you demonstrate responsibility without deflection or blame, you build the trust that forms leadership's foundation.
Ready to transform your approach and elevate your impact? Listen now to discover practical strategies for evolving beyond management into genuine leadership. Then share your own leadership journey with us—we'd love to hear how these principles are reshaping your professional path.
Presented by John Wandolowski and Greg Powell
Well, hello and welcome to Success in Secrets and Stories. I'm your host, john Wondolowski, and I'm here with my co-host and friend, greg Powell. Greg, hey, everybody. Yeah, so today, what are we going to be talking about? It's kind of an interesting subject that we've talked about in the past, but we're going to do a comparison, and the comparison is sometimes not as obvious. We're going to talk about something that should be pretty straightforward what's the difference between leaders versus a manager? Let me give you some examples. Have you ever heard of someone called a manager and later was referred to as a leader by someone else? Or are leadership and management titles essentially the same? Let me help you. No, can both someone be a leader and a manager? Oh heck, yes, I've done that. But if you don't understand the essence of the difference of being a leader and being a manager, that's something we want to try to explore a little bit today. So, leadership vs Management Key Differences by Nikki Greenhalgh from Daniels College of Business, the University of Denver, from November of 23. Are you a leader or are you a manager? Maybe you're both. That question is the business version of the chicken and the egg dilemma, while the terms are often used to define the same role and both are equally important in a business success. There are key differences between leadership and management. There are key differences between leadership and management.
Speaker 2:Now we move on to Daniels College of Business Associate Professor from Grismer Fellow, amy Hamilton, who has done years of research and teaching on the skills of leadership and managers and to find the important distinction between each skill set, and we're going to be sharing her ideas and her definitions and characteristics of each the definition between leaders and managers and how they can work in concert in a business setting. So what is leadership? Simply put, amy's personal definition of leader is someone inspired to work with others together to achieve a shared goal. Talks specifically about the importance of inspiration for leaders. Amy Hamilton's personal definition of leadership is someone that inspires others to work together to achieve a shared goal. She talks specifically about the importance of inspiration for leaders, the most effective of whom need to be able to drive their followers towards a long-term goal, even if the finish line isn't in sight. So she has four themes for a successful leader Having the ability to cope with change and react quickly in an unpredictable business environment. And within that framework, there are a few important characteristics. So number one persuade followers to take the necessary changes to achieve goals. Persuade followers to take the necessary changes to achieve goals. Two formulate an inspirational message or vision that others can buy into. Three recognize personal weaknesses and find others to handle those tasks. Four communicate effective across the internal and external stakeholders. That communication is really the key on all of those elements. But what I think is interesting about what she's talking about is what would be a definition of a great leader someone that actually encompasses to be able to persuade, formulate, recognize weaknesses.
Speaker 2:It's involvement in terms of management, and the one gentleman that comes to mind was Kevin Ryan.
Speaker 2:He was a wonderful CEO and president of an organization called Wesley Jessen that made contact lenses and when he was originally hired he was just a consultant with a capital investment firm and making an assessment of buying the company, which he ended up pitching that he wanted to run the company rather than buy and sell, which is what the capitalists were looking at, and actually brought the company to either number three or number four in the industry before things changed before in the industry before things changed.
Speaker 2:But as a leader, he understood how to divide up the workloads and inspire the people in different parts of the organization. He dealt with manufacturing, he dealt with R&D and he dealt with the sales and marketing team, and having that skill set was a very important element. But to also have the skill set to be able to step down, manage the process when the process was broken. A really good leader knows when there's time to be inspirational and when there's times to give an order, and that really was his talent of being able to push people to get that end result. Greg, I think you have an example of what you would consider a leader from your experience.
Speaker 1:I do, john, thank you. So his name was Ron Kidwitz, the name of the company was Helene Curtis, and Ron was a visionary and he made the company's mission visible to not just El Cidre leadership or the mid-level management, but all the employees of the organization. He was very strategic in his approach, not one of those knee-jerk reaction kind of folks long-range planning, building a story, building an outcome. He had the gift of persuasion and it wasn't just because he was a CEO. There's just a way he had about him that would make you listen and want to work with him strong influence skills and I would honestly tell you, this guy asked me to climb the mountain with him. I would have done it. Just an incredible leader, an incredible company, incredible experience for an employee such as myself.
Speaker 1:So what is management? So, carrying on with what Hamilton talked about before, she leans on Henry Foyle's five functions of management to help define the role of a manager. So let's talk about those functions First. One manager must plan and have the ability to create things like a budget. Right? Who does that? It's not the finance person, right? The manager does that. How about organizing a workable company structure that includes chain of command and role definition, making sure who does what and people know who does what. Commanding and getting the most from their people. Right Management that's what you need to do, because as a manager, you could probably do some of it yourself, but that's not the best use of your time. So number two is organizing a workable company structure that includes chain of command and role definition and people know what they're doing and who's doing what. John, talk a little bit about commanding and getting the most from your staff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, A manager's role is significantly different from a leader's role. When you're demanding to get something done in case in point being an emergency or working on an emergency team You're really not having that debate that you're expecting from a leader. You're expecting results and you're trying to drive those results as fast as you can. That's that commanding to get the most in order to try to drive that result quickly. That sometimes is what a manager is required to do.
Speaker 1:Also coordinating departments so they know the responsibilities of their respective teams. And then, finally, controlling and measuring how a team is doing against not just a budget, because that's important, but are they hitting the performance goals that were set out? So let's talk a little bit about the characteristics of successful managers, John.
Speaker 2:I have a very good example of a manager that comes to mind, and he was a very nice gentleman. He was very good in terms of the basics of the skill and taught me a lot about how to be a manager myself. What was interesting is that he would steal some of my best ideas because, as a manager, he was more worried about his future than my future. So if I came up with a really good idea, all of a sudden it ended up being his idea. And yeah, at a certain point we had the conversation and the laugh that I got was a line that he gave me of you report to me, I don't report to you, so your ideas are my ideas. Okay, so that's a manager. A leader would never go down that road, but still a decent person, and I did get along with him, but I was able to go beyond him. I managed up and I was able to find an opportunity to go past him. Greg, do you have an example of a great manager?
Speaker 1:I do, john. I worked for an individual early in my human resources career, so I'd already been working in distribution and sales and some other areas. But I had a great manager when I got into HR. She was very detail-oriented from a planning perspective, right. This was before there were these automated tools and that for project management right. She had a little spreadsheet thing that she did by hand. She knew who was doing what, when things were supposed to be done, milestones, check-ins and a phrase we used to use some years ago. She was more than three questions deep, meaning you could ask her kind of high-level question about the projects or the functions that were being performed and she could answer that. And you might take it down to the next level and she could answer that. And guess what? She wasn't superficial. You could take it down even a little deeper. She wasn't a subject matter expert. She had people that worked for her that did that. But she knew enough of what was going on to be able to intelligently help solve problems, work with teams. So she was more than three questions deep. She was phenomenal.
Speaker 1:So what is the difference between leadership and management? So, while the terms leadership and management are often used interchangeably, a well-run organization should be able to define key differences between each of those roles we talked about in the chicken or egg context, and Hamilton has an easy way to differentiate. So here we go. A good leader needs to be a good manager, but not all managers are good leaders, she said. Hamilton added that leaders need to be vision-oriented, while managers should be detail-oriented. So what are the traits that separate a leader from a manager?
Speaker 1:And this is from society for human resources, april 20th 2021, brian o'connell and brian is a freelance writer in the bucks county, pennsylvania area. So brian says this managers who don't develop leadership skills may be hobbling their career growth. I mean, they're not going to go anywhere if they don't start to get those leadership skills, whether it's an inability to persuade or inspire others, craft a strategy or engage with team members emotionally, bosses who ignore their weaknesses risk getting stuck at that lower end of the management ladder forever. So they got to learn how to tap into the traits it takes them to become a high-level working leader. Brian said he's frequently seen managers hinder themselves of their teams by refusing to get out of the way right You've heard of micromanagers in that and let go of the day-to-day responsibilities.
Speaker 1:This is from Ryan Dennehy, chief Executive Officer at Electric, a New York City-based IT support firm. Making the jump from manager to leader requires a conscious shift away from handling tactical items towards the focus of making strategic decisions. The fact is, employees want to work for people. They consider leaders. Right we remember those days. Right, you want to work for a leader, not another manager, if you're a high-level individual contributor or have aspirations to get higher in the organization, and the data bears that out. Cornell University had a study that found that employees, by significant margins, prefer to work with a chief executive who demonstrates what the study called prototypical leadership traits.
Speaker 2:John. What are the main conflicts between leadership and management? She goes on to say because leaders and managers have different defined roles, it's natural for conflict to arise between them. Hamilton said problems most frequently arise when the company isn't on track to meet its goals. Leaders might want to have you to inspire and support people, whereas managers might say you don't have the right people in their roles and we need to cut expenses, like regardless of the reason for the conflict. She goes on to say that it's important for leaders and managers to come to a shared subordinate goal, to a shared subordinate goal. Hamilton also added that leaders and managers must agree on the company culture to move forward whenever there's a conflict. Here are some interesting quotes on a topic from noteworthy individuals.
Speaker 2:Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success. Leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall that's Stephen Coveney. Or management is arranging and telling. Leader is about nurturing and enhancing, tom Peters. How about a boss inspires fear. A leader inspires enthusiasm, john C Maxwell. Or how about Teddy Roosevelt? A leader works in the open and a boss is covert. A leader leads, a boss drives. I think it kind of drives home the point that this isn't a new problem. But being able to understand who's leading and how to inspire people versus how to tell people really is an interesting tell on whether they're capable of taking that next step of leadership being able to just not only do the task but lead others to do the task.
Speaker 2:From my personal moment of transition is a story about one of the project managers that reported to me. That is now a director, and it was kind of interesting the comments that she made about that transition. She was task-oriented, being a project engineer and having an engineering background, but as I applied my craft and what I did in terms of their leader of that department, I was trying to show them that it's more than just the job. It's more than just the deadline. It's the people that are involved. It's engaging in the results, understanding how it's going to be used rather than what was put on paper, and trying to have that empathy to take a little bit of the view of the customer that we're building something for and understand how they're going to receive it.
Speaker 2:The excitement of the beginning, of getting something and then to understand that they're making decisions on how they're going to be working in their environment for years to come. So being a better communicator was one of the most important lessons that I tried to drive home to anyone who reported to me, and she was a very good communicator. But now she was poignant. She was trying to drive to a result that really went beyond just meeting the goals or meeting the requirements it was anticipating and all of a sudden thinking strategically. Greg, do you have an example of someone that you saw learn that transition from manager to leader?
Speaker 1:It's my own, john. So when I think about in reflection my growth from manager to leader, I think about a couple of things. One I was a first line supervisor, my first role out of college. I have people reporting to me. They called me supervisor, they called me manager. I was a sales associate where I did manage people, but I had a sales territory I was responsible for. And then I got into human resources proper and I worked my way up and I became a staffing manager, training manager and then an employee relations manager. Then, looking at what we might call from a title standpoint, the leader side, I worked my way up to director of talent management and a director of human resources, even a director of DE&I, but you know what. Those were nice titles to have and roles to be responsible for. I'm not exactly sure the exact time I've made that differentiation from leader to manager, but it certainly wasn't totally based on title and I believe it was when I started to demonstrate those leadership traits with my teams is when it occurred and that was something that happened over time. So let me give you some tips for growing into that leadership role.
Speaker 1:Again, going from manager to leader. One how can managers step out of their task-heavy management role and grow into true leadership. So, according to Karen Oakley she's a director of human resources at a company called Fracture, an e-commerce firm in Florida the journey to becoming a company leader begins with self-reflection. We've talked about reflection in these podcasts in the past. We must truthfully assess ourselves first, get feedback from the team, peers and management, and then complete these tasks to find firm footing on the leadership journey. So, john, there's some tips for growing into a leadership role. Your thoughts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, when we were talking about MBR, one of the most important things we talked about was self-awareness, and if a leader doesn't have the ability to step back and see what they're saying, hear what they're saying, understand the impact and, more importantly, whether your audience is engaged Are they blinking while you're talking? That whole thing about engaging your staff is the difference between telling and leading, because if it's going in and your audience isn't grabbing it, you're losing a real opportunity. Greg.
Speaker 1:Thank you, john. So, as we've said many times, feedback is a gift, so think about assembling a sounding board. Find a member or coach to help you when you have questions or feel you're losing your way, you were my sounding board when I was starting out.
Speaker 2:you were my. We didn't work from the same organization, but we stayed in contact and we were both like, does this sound right, Does this look right?
Speaker 1:And I couldn't agree with you more, john. It was an opportunity to work with a trusted individual, because this is sensitive stuff, right, and if somebody you work with that can give you some objective feedback and be a good listing board, that's excellent. We've talked also in these podcasts about empathy. Develop an abundance of that right. The emotional IQ and compassion towards others is paramount to becoming a real leader. Take a walk in somebody else's shoes. Realize that each of your employees has a personal life that will impact their professional life. John, you probably have seen some of that in your experience.
Speaker 2:Well, the biggest problem is whenever you have those individuals that finish college and they're going right into a white collar job and they have no idea who they're leading. They're just part of the spreadsheet and part of the goals for the team. They really don't understand the complexity.
Speaker 2:For me, I started in the mechanical field and when somebody that's doing the work is saying, not only is it dirty, but it's rusted up and it's locked and I've been working for an hour and a half just trying to break it free so I can pull out the existing system, well, if you don't understand that empathy, if you don't understand that walking in their shoes, put on a blue shirt, walk out there with them and experience it. Understand it. Trust me there with them and experience it. Understand it. Trust me, you will have so much more of an understanding and the employee will notice that you've gone beyond just sitting in the ivory tower with your white shirt and tie. Take the tie off, get in there and experience what they're fighting, so that you have that shared experience and it will go through the organization in a heartbeat. It's the best advice I can give for somebody who's trying to learn how to take that next step. Never be a distance from that whole concept of walking in their shoes.
Speaker 1:So, john, a couple others want to add One canvassing the company for different outlooks, and what that means is don't just look for your buddies, don't just look for your friends inside the organization. Sometimes that's when a 360 feedback tool can be very helpful, because people can say anonymous, but you might get that dissenting feedback that might be very helpful to you. And the last one and I really want John to kind of close this out with this being accountable. What does that sound?
Speaker 2:like John. Yeah, being responsible, which is the essence of what got me to the point where I wanted to do this podcast, because the essence of being a good manager is being responsible for your results, whether you like them or not. And if you think about that statement, that was done by a gentleman by the name of Michael Durst and Dr Durst taught this program of management by responsibility and to be accountable, whether you like the results or not, is really the essence of whether you are mature enough in your position and whether you understand what it is to be a leader. When that statement and those kind of approaches are reflected from other people that say you are the most responsible person I know, or you're the most responsible person I know, or you're the most responsible leader that we have in a team and I know you can drive it to the result. Trust me, people notice when you've taken accountability. Whether it is successful or not successful, there's an element of trust that is there when they see the honesty. See the honesty.
Speaker 2:So, if you like what you've heard in this podcast, yeah, greg and I do this on a regular basis now. It's kind of fun and, yeah, I think we've really enjoyed almost three years of doing the podcast. I've also written a book called Building your leadership toolbox. It's available on amazoncom and audible and all the other uh vehicles for purchasing a book, and we also did an audio book. It's very cool, um, the podcast is what you're listening to, thank you, and also in other popular podcast formats like apple, google and spotify. Dr durst that we've already mentioned. His information is available on successgrowthacademycom and my email is wando75.jw at gmailcom, and Greg.
Speaker 1:I can be reached at gpowell374 at gmailcom.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we want to hear from you Give us a word and you've helped us develop our program. So we want to hear from you Give us a word and you've helped us develop our program, so please feel free to give us a line. Thanks, greg.
Speaker 1:Thanks, John.
Speaker 2:As always. Yeah, next time, man, next time.