Leadership vs. Management: What's the Difference Between a Manager and a Leader?

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"People don't leave jobs; they leave managers." - a common managerial proverb

Getting the title of "manager" doesn't automatically qualify you as a leader. Most managers (at least 58%, according to one study) are so bad at leadership that their employees call them "toxic" and leave. 

If that doesn't sound an alarm for you, I don't know what would.

In today's podcast episode, we'll tackle the distinct difference between being a manager and a leader. I go into my first foray into management and the stupid stuff I did right out of the gate. 

Don't do what I did. Listen to this podcast episode so you can dodge some of the most common management mistakes and grow as a leader before you fail as a manager.

Book a complimentary management coaching conversation at https://calendly.com/catherine-vanderlaan/free-60-minute-leadership-consultation

Email me at [e-mail] to ask a question or get in touch.

Join our Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/managementmaterialcoaching

Find out more about Management and Leadership Coaching at https://managementmaterialcoaching.com/

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
manager is someone who organizes work.
That's what managers are therefor.
They are there to organize workto make sure that productive
people, people with skills, aregiven the work that is best for
the company, the work that theycan do.
Managers know the skills oftheir employees and they assign
work according to those skills.

(00:24):
What part of that is leadership?
None of it.
None of that is leadership.
Me having all of her work gothrough me, micromanaging,
checking her work, getting adaily report what part of that
is leadership?
None of that was leadership.
Leadership is about inspiring,encouraging and engaging people,

(00:50):
regardless of the leader'sformal authority, title or
position.
Managers direct work.
Leaders move spirits to formteams that really want to work
together to accomplish a purposeor a vision.
Welcome to Management Material.

(01:11):
My name is Katherine Vanderlaan.
I started my career at thebottom as an assistant and
worked my way up to become theboss's boss in eight years and
man, I love management.
Welcome back to ManagementMaterial.

(01:33):
My name is Katherine Vanderlaan, and today we're going to be
discussing the differencebetween management and
leadership.
I train new managers.
I was a new manager myself.
I do a lot of group leadershipand management coaching.
I help leaders become leaderspeople want to follow.

(01:55):
So let's talk about this bigdifference between management
and leadership.
One of the very first thingsthat I do when I am helping a
leader become a leader peoplewant to follow is identifying
the difference between a managerand a leader.
So let me ask you this what isthe difference between a manager

(02:18):
and a leader?
To answer that, let me tell youa story.
My very first foray intomanagement involved managing a
summer intern.
She was lovely, she was sogreat.
I coordinated with HR to findthe right people to interview
not everybody who applied, buthandpicked team or a handpicked

(02:41):
few who applied.
I arranged the interviewingteam and then I made a hiring
decision.
So I was allowed this authorityto make that hiring decision.
It was my first time.
I was so excited.
I was so excited to be amanager, at least for a summer.
When it came to onboarding, Ihad no idea what to do.
So I figured it would be a goodidea to introduce her to the

(03:03):
people she was going to beworking with, the systems we had
in place and the products wewere developing.
Simple enough, right?
Yes, people processes products.
Let's do it.
And this is what I tell otherpeople to do.
It was, I thought, pretty goodonboarding.
Then it came time to give hersome work to do.
Now I don't know if you knowthis, but new hires, and

(03:27):
particularly new interns, caneither be really good and
dedicated, proactive andproductive they're really
invested in what we're doing orthey can be expecting to coast
at the job and not get too muchproductive work done and
generally just try to stayinvisible while collecting a
paycheck.
I thought I had hired the first.

(03:50):
I thought she was going to beproactive.
I thought she would beproductive.
By her third week I figured outthat her expectations were more
centered around coasting.
Now let's saying this from myperspective at the time.
I will give you my perspectivenow, in a few minutes.
And we're also we're going toget into hiring and what I

(04:12):
learned in hiring in anotherepisode.
So don't don't worry about that, we'll get into that at that
point.
At this point, I had a challengeto face with this intern.
It had been a few weeks aboutwell, it had been two weeks and
some days she wasn't gettingmuch done.
I had to figure out do I figureout how to motivate my intern

(04:32):
to try harder or do I let it go?
Do I just let her coast allsummer.
Now I don't know if you havefigured this out about me, but I
don't let too many things go,and I wanted to prove myself as
a manager.
It was my first foray intomanagement, so I decided to try
to motivate her to do some work.

(04:53):
Then I had another challengehow can I make sure she's doing
worthwhile work, worthwhile forthe company and worthwhile for
her?
It was an internship.
She had to come away from itwith something she had learned
about the company, about theindustry, something that was an

(05:14):
educational component, and Itook this very, very seriously.
They had to present thoselearnings to the company and
then to their school.
So this intern was from aschool in Boston.
She was studying the industry,so she was getting a particular
degree in the industry, and soshe wanted to learn something.

(05:36):
Now she didn't think that thejob yet was very interesting and
she wasn't entirely sure whatshe was going to learn.
We had 10 weeks left in theinternship.
Yeah, we had to dig a littledeeper before the internship was
over, and that was okay.
I really thought that thatwould motivate her.
So let me tell you what I did.
I started asking her for dailyaccountability in her work and

(06:00):
started having all of her workgo through me.
Now I'm not telling you thatthat was a good thing to do.
I'm just telling you what I did.
What I did, I became an intensemicromanager.
Micromanaging is not natural tome.
I hate it and that wasn't myproudest moment, but that's what

(06:21):
I did.
That's what I did.
I just didn't know what else todo.
And again, I'm not telling youto do this.
That's just what I did.
So she started sending me dailyreports and I started being a
bottleneck in her projects.
Yeah, it motivated her in theshort term.
It got her to pay attention towhat she was doing.
Try to check some boxes andtell me what it was that she was

(06:41):
accomplishing every single day.
But it also slowed down thework that she could have been
doing.
Throughout all of thosedecisions, I decided to be a
manager, not a leader.
Now, I don't know if you sawany leadership in there, but
from where I am now, I don't seeleadership coming out.

(07:03):
I see managing A manager issomeone who organizes work.
That's what managers are therefor.
Organizes work that's whatmanagers are there for.
They are there to organize work, to make sure that productive
people, people with skills aregiven the work that is best for
the company, the work that theycan do.
Managers know the skills oftheir employees and they assign

(07:24):
work according to those skills.
What part of that is leadership?
None of it.
None of that is leadership.
Me having all of her work gothrough me, micromanaging,
checking her work, getting adaily report what part of that
is leadership?
None of that was leadership.

(07:44):
Leadership is about inspiring,encouraging and engaging people,
regardless of the leader'sformal authority.
Encouraging and engaging peopleregardless of the leader's
formal authority, title orposition.
Managers direct work.
Leaders move spirits to formteams that really want to work

(08:05):
together to accomplish a purposeor a vision.
Do you see the difference?
I was acting as a manager, nota leader.
I really thought at that pointthat I was doing a good job
managing this intern, but Iwasn't.
I wasn't developing leadershipskills.
I learned HR systems and how toonboard employees, but I didn't
learn how to encourage her tofulfill a goal or a vision until

(08:29):
until A few weeks went by.
It was maybe, maybe like weekfive at this point, somewhere
around there, and she had a 13or 14 weekend internship,
something like that, maybe 12.
A few weeks went by and I satdown with my former boss and
mentor.
She asked me how it was goingwith my new intern and I opened

(08:49):
up to her that it was hardgetting her to really care about
her work at all and beproactive.
I couldn't find figure out whyshe didn't care.
See, I cared a lot and she didnot care and it was really
eating at me.
I knew.
I knew something wasn'tclicking.
I was blaming the interninstead of trying to figure out
what it was that I was doing.

(09:10):
Then she asked me a very simplequestion what have you given
her to care about?
Does she know why she's hereand what she's helping the team
do it?
Finally, in that moment itfinally clicked.
The intern had no idea what ourteam was trying to build and why

(09:32):
we were all there.
She didn't know the strategy,the changes we were trying to
facilitate in the market or thechanges we had already made in
the market.
She didn't know what we weredoing.
She didn't know her future orif she was behind the work at
all.
She didn't care because shedidn't know our why.

(09:52):
She didn't know why we weredoing it.
I know that sounds super fluffy, you know.
Oh, she didn't know our why.
It sounds super fluffy but itreally isn't.
She had no reason to care, noneat all.
So I started learning thefundamentals of leadership.
So I started learning thefundamentals of leadership.

(10:13):
I asked her to join me andanother colleague I think it was
either an acquisitions editoror a marketing manager, someone
like that.
I can't actually remember whoit was, so sorry, but I know I
wasn't alone.
So I asked her to join me andanother colleague in a
conference room so we couldpractice our strategy

(10:34):
presentations and get herfeedback.
So it must have been anacquisition center.
Now that I'm thinking about it,she asked amazing questions
about our market segmentation,what it all meant, the needs of
the customers and what we weretrying to get approval to do to
fill those needs.
So we were there practicing andwe didn't really need to
practice at that point, but wewere.

(10:55):
We were asking for approval andshe was engaged.
She asked why we weren't tryingto make things for all of the
market segments at once.
So we brought up our SWOTanalysis of our business and how
it applied to each marketsegment.
She got really into it, guys.
She got super into it.
I mean personally, strategy isreally is super fascinating, so

(11:19):
of course she was into it.
Then she asked a really greatquestion so what are we doing
now to help these customers?
And my colleague and Iexplained it to her.
We talked about which marketsegment and which of their
problems we were trying to solveright now.
We got into how the teamoperated and what we were all

(11:41):
looking for for feedback fromcustomers.
We talked about the wholepicture really, what everybody
was doing, how they fit in, howthis was helping us and
informing our strategy, movingthings along.
We talked about analytics andhow each data point came from a
real person with real needs.

(12:01):
Data is not just data.
Each point of data has a personto back it up.
Over the next few weeks, shechanged her intern project to
facilitate more fluidinformation sharing between
departments, because at thattime and maybe it's not like
this now or not like this inyour organization, but between
the departments we actually hada hard time sharing information,

(12:24):
getting access to each other'ssystems, knowing what everybody
had access to that could helpinform strategies and products
and launches and all that stuff.
Through all of her questioningand looking at our strategies,
she facilitated that fluidinformation sharing so we could

(12:45):
better solve our customers'problems.
It was a great project.
It was so great and it helpedwith all of our work For years.
It helped with our work.
I made the mistake of thinkingthat because I had some formal
signed authority over my intern,that she would do what I

(13:06):
thought was best.
I was excited and organized,keeping a close eye on what she
was already doing and how shewas doing it.
That that was the tactic that Itook at the beginning.
I was a little mini managerready to manage and actually I
was micromanaging.
That doesn't inspire anyone.

(13:26):
But I wasn't a leader.
Until I saw beyond that surfacework, I realized that she
wasn't inspired, didn'tunderstand the purpose of our
work and was operating just toget a solid recommendation.
Really she had selfish purposesand it's because she didn't
know anything else.
She had no other information.
She didn't know what we weredoing, so she couldn't have any

(13:49):
other purposes.
She didn't ask questionsbecause she didn't feel safe
enough or valued enough anddidn't trust me.
I learned the difference thatsummer between being a manager
and a leader.
Now I did have the privilege tofigure it out with an intern
and I asked for that privilege.

(14:11):
I asked to manage the internand my boss at the time gave me
that opportunity.
I learned to build trust byproviding a safe space,
involving her in the process,opening up our strategy and our
whole team's thinking, askingher to ask questions at
different times.

(14:31):
I didn't tell you that becauseyou're not sitting in the
meeting.
You didn't see how it happened.
She asked great questionsbecause I asked her to ask and
she didn't know it was safe toask questions.
Until I told her it was safe, Ishowed her that it can be fun
and that we were solving aproblem we didn't know how to
solve together as a team.

(14:53):
We were all doing it together.
We were using all of our mindstogether, we were all adapting
and I was asking her to join usin the short time that she had
with us.
Thankfully, she got on board.
So that's good.
Not everybody gets on board,but she did.
She was excited to know what wewere doing and excited to get
on board.
So here's good.
Not everybody gets on board,but she did.
She was excited to know what wewere doing and excited to get

(15:14):
on board.
So here's the bottom line.
Managers are not leaders simplybecause they have authority over
others.
Leaders inspire people.
They bring them on board athought-led team and truly care
about the people around thembecause they're people, not
because of what they can do.
Leaders create safe spaces forpeople to thrive.

(15:36):
They call the people aroundthem to be excellent, to keep
growing, to do what they saythey will do and that means
holding them to standards totackle challenges together in
that safe space, and then theyacknowledge each person's unique
contribution.
They thank people for whatthey've done.

(15:58):
Leaders lead because they care.
That's very, very differentfrom a manager's job of
organizing work.
I hope you see that difference.
So what can you do with this newinformation?
What can you do now If you'realready a manager?
Stop and reflect on how wellyou're leading.

(16:19):
Are you creating emotionallysafe environments for people to
try and fail and get back upagain?
Are you facilitating teamconversations that give everyone
a voice and a chance tocontribute?
And I don't mean that in somesort of lofty goal.
I mean everybody has a uniqueexperience and perspective and

(16:40):
can lend that to whatever it isyou're doing.
You can tell whether you'releading or just managing by how
your team works right now.
If they're learning and growing, trying to be excellent and do
their jobs really well, thenyou're probably leading and you
can stop and think about whatyou're doing to lead and how you

(17:02):
can improve.
If your team isn't learning andgrowing and they're checking
boxes instead of beinginnovative, then you're probably
only managing.
Contact me.
Let's change that.
If you're not a manager yet,you can set yourself up as the

(17:23):
next obvious choice managementmaterial.
Right To be a manager byleading.
Create emotionally safe spaces.
Ask people in private why theydon't participate if they're not
participating, and then helpfigure out a way to help them
feel safe enough to get involvedin the team.
Facilitate the creation of safespaces.

(17:47):
Hear about the people aroundyou, because they're people.
Get to know them and then reachout to me for guidance.
I can help you skip years ofself-development and skip it,
because it won't take years.
It'll take months.
Book a complimentaryconsultation and we can figure

(18:08):
out what kind of coaching if anyat all will serve you best.
If it doesn't fit you, I willlet you know.
Let's make sure you are knownas management material and I'll
see you in the next episode.