Management vs. Leadership

In a department meeting a while back our Chief People Officer asked everyone in the room "Who here thinks they are a leader?" And to my surprise almost everyone in the room raised their hand (obviously I didn't)! I was thinking to myself "Wait a minute... I have no manager title and no group of employees I supervise, therefore how can I qualify myself as a leader?" However, as I looked around the room, I noticed that several of the people who did raise their hand were no different than me. So what was I missing?

I am lucky enough to have a great mentor at work and she encouraged me to think about that and with her encouragement, I enrolled in the Leadership Certificate at Red Deer College. What a great idea! These courses have really opened my eyes up to the idea that leadership and management are different and that I don't have to be a “manager” and have a fancy title to be a good leader. People can lead from any role within an organization.

What do you think the difference between management and leadership is? Here are some ideas loosely based on a discussion in the book "the 360 Degree Leader" by John C. Maxwell:

Management is:

-          A title given to someone

-          A process that must be followed

-          A formal chain of command

-          A position where the rules/policies/guidelines are laid out

Leadership is:

-          Something anyone can do, yet few people are good at

-          A process which is different for everyone based on their personal situation

-          Informal in nature

-          Has to be practiced and worked on, although some have more “natural” talent

-          Something that can take a long time to establish

This realization that management and leadership are different, was what they call an “ah-ha moment” for me! I don't think that I had ever seen management and leadership as separate things before. I used to think that the only way that I will ever grow is to get to the next level in my organization and become a manager; then I would learn how to be a leader. But based on this new information, I now know that I can work within the position that I have, which I love, to develop and use those leadership skills now, so that someday I will be prepared should I be lucky enough to have the chance to be a manager.

In this blog, I am going to be posting some updates on topics from the leadership certificate courses as well as interesting pieces from leadership books, and I am going to try and implement some of these lessons to my workplace and see how they fit “the real world”.

I hope you enjoy! Stay tuned…