The two terms and roles are often conflated, and it’s best to start the inquiry with a way of recognizing their differences. Abraham Zaleznik, a former HBS prof offers a view on this that provides a solid foundation.
by Henry Mintzberg. It’s interesting to see how much of what he covers under ‘management’ we usually lump under ‘leadership’.
of leadership, which I think is healthy. We all long for a Kennedy or an Obama, and the world certainly needs them; but there is a lot of every day blocking and tackling required to make the world work effectively, and engaging people to do that doesn’t require the confluence of crisis, character and charisma that has given these two men the opportunity for historical impact. Is it leadership or management? I think the answer is Yes.
Thirdly, Daniel Goleman has made an important contribution to the leadership literature that deserves to be part of the conversation (). His findings posit a new dimension of endeavor for leaders—‘emotional intelligence’—that makes the critical difference, he argues, between successful and unsuccessful leaders. He sees a well-deployed EI capability making a demonstrable impact in all realms of endeavor—for both leaders and managers—regardless of the gender or role of those being led.
for any attempt to define what leaders are and should do is the question: how do you know if you’ve been successful? What are the best outcome measures? A group of colleagues and I took this up some years ago and said why don’t we turn away from ‘leadership’ and look at ‘followership’? Isn’t the surest test of leaders whether anybody bothers to follow? And if I were a ‘follower’, what would it have taken to turn me into one? This subtle shift is actually in my view an important final grounding of the debate about leaders in the reality of everyday life, a best and final defense against the grandiosity leaders can so easily assume.
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