The difference that exists between a leader and a manager is that while leaders have followers and people who look up to them, managers lead people who work with them or for them. To realize development in business, owners should always try to be good leaders and managers at the same time such that workers can look up to them as role models and perfect people to lead the pack.
Successful business owners know that management and leadership must always go hand in hand any day anytime within the lifetime of a business. Any manager who tries to separate leadership and management causes more problems than benefits to the proper running of a company or any form of business.
It does not matter the type of business you run, whether it’s industrial, financial or outsourcing company you’ll still need to be a good manager and leader to bring your team together for a common goal which in this case could be growth or achievements of goals whether long-term or short-term. A layman would think that leadership and management are one and the same thing but the reality here is that a big difference lies between the two. To make everything clear let us now look at the differences between a leader and a manager.
Leaders have followers while managers have workers
As a manager, it’s common to have employees who work for you and your task here would, therefore, be to fix any internal issues that lie within your company or business. Mostly as a manager, you’ll be getting reports, updates and important information from your employees about day to day life of your business. After every important information about your company gets to your desk, you’ll then have to analyze and come up with the best strategy to keep things work out or to steer your business forward. Unlike managers who have workers or employees below them, leaders have people in the form of followers.
A good leader in a company should be able to nurture more leaders within the structure of a company. This can be in form of team leadership and motivators to boost morale among team members.
A manager manages a group while a leader creates a team
While a leader sees every team player in the company as an important pillar for growth and development, a manager sees employees as people who are part of the workforce behind the completion of a variety of tasks under the company. He ensures everything runs positively towards the achievement of goals. Managers focus more on the core of the business, but leaders look beyond tomorrow. Leaders understand the importance of teamwork and collaboration among employees when it comes to execution of tasks while managers see employees as a group meant to work to make the business run.
A leader takes responsibility, a manager shifts it
A leader is a person who is always ready to take responsibility for outcomes in a business which could be being unable to hit targets or failing to submit work on time. Managers tend to shift responsibilities to a different side so that other people within a business can see how to solve it if it’s an issue. Task delegation is a common characteristic among managers, and this is what can be used to gauge leaders and managers.
Leaders do exactly what is supposed to be done
What differentiates a leader from a manager is the fact that a leader will always stand by the company during hard times. Leaders normally do what should be done at the right time. If the structure of the company should be downsized leaders will do exactly that unlike managers who will most likely make someone do it or be in-charge.
While leaders are proactive people, managers are reactive
A manager will most likely be taken by shock when something uncommon happens to the business. They react differently to bad news compared to leaders. A leader will always try to come up strategies to steer the whole team and business to a safe ground in case of bad news.