Vee’s Inspiration October 25, 2024
To BBell you asked, so I answer…
I was asked my thoughts on Managing vs Leadership. I share my opinion from the perspective of Managing and Leading people of all ages, genders, identities, and nationalities for the past 35 years. My description has evolved as I’ve grown in personal and professional experience. My description has been refined and expanded as I’ve dealt with personal and professional hardships. My description has been disputed and defended by people who are more talented and smarter than me. As I meditate on this question I look at these two roles as two necessary components of any successful organization. Keep in mind these organizations can be personal such as the family unit or professional such as a Fortune 100 company. I have come to understand that one role without the other, exponentially increases the probability of failure of an organization. If I were to boil these two roles to their simplest form as expressed by a word or phrase, I would say,
Management is Static Stability
and
Leadership is Intentional Vision
I define Management as the ability to create and execute systems to provide order and efficiency from complexity and disorder.
I define leadership as the ability to see through complexity and disorder to a goal that is unseen by others because of said complexities and disorder, and understand and does what’s needed to achieve said goal.
I can talk about the subtleties of each of these for hours. Feel free to add your thoughts in the comment section below.
Thank you BBell for the spark…