Management versus leadership qualities

Abstract

This article will focus on differentiating what makes a leader and a manager, and how these qualities might differ when looking at the right candidates. It is known that managers tend to seek control of the situation, avoid instability and resolve issues in the quickest manner possible. On the other hand, leaders are more inclined to allow chaos and uncertain situations in favour of getting a better understanding of the problem and gain helpful insights. Management focuses on planning and building, whether as leadership strives to give direction and inspiring . But can these two profiles be fulfilled by the same individual? To answer this question and other aspects, this wiki page will follow closely Abraham Zaleznik's award winning article for the Harvard Business Review, named Managers and leaders: Are They Different?.

Managers and leaders: Are They Different?

The article is structured into different topics in which the author shows the different traits that characterize each of the roles for said topic. These will be discussed separately in order to gain view on speific diferences that might suit one or other role in a given situation.

Manager vs. Leader Personality

Zaleznik describes managers and leaders as two very different roles, almost opposing in personality. These characters have very different views on most of the decision-making in a company, which makes their personalities clashing at times.

Management is often associated with rationality. The main goal for a good manager is to get thigs done, and to do so in the least disturbing way for its subordinates. A problem solver by nature, he or she will try to get the team working and operating efficiently in order to work towards a common goal.

On the other hand, leaders have more of a chaotic way of working. It is in instability that they find better progress, and often work in ways that would make a manager anxious. Commonly viewed as brilliant and isolated persons, they are seen as people who have had experiences in their upbringing that have made them thrive in conflicting environments.

The author also comments on the fact that managers have traits that can be trained, but this does not apply to leaders. As there are no ways to train leaders, it is left to chance that one might appear where needed. Then again, if a leader is present, his ways of working might undermine the development of managers who will not thrive under the leader's conditions and viceversa. Zaleznik answers to this dillema by saying that the actual need is for people who can act as both roles. But this in itself is a contradiction, as the personal values, history and way of percieving the world are way too distant.

Attitudes Toward Goals

The way that goals are viewed differs greatly depending on your values and background, this can clearly be seen in the way that Zaleznik portraits them.

It is a natural tendency for a manager to seek rationality and control. His primary focus is that of getting things done. There is no time for trying to achieve desires, as necessities have the primary focus on tasks to be finished. Zaleznik reinforces his point on this by giving an example of an attitude toward goals that defines a manager. Frederic G. Donner, CEO of General Motors (1958-1967) said that a company must be able to get the right product in the right place at the right moment in the correct quantity, and to do this it must be able to create the product that the customer needs, not the one that it wants to produce.

This stance is very different to what a leader would want to do. They would want to push their idea into the market, even though the customer doesn't know it has a need for it. This can be seen throughout history in cases such as Polaroid, bringing a camera that would take the snapshot and develop the image almost instantly. This is for sure something that the public did not ask for or know about, but a development of technology.

Both of these examples show that leaders search for opportunities in an active manner while bringing up emotions, wanting people to change their expectations, whether as managers prefer to be more reactive.

Conceptions of Work

On this topic, Zaleznik shows through an example that a manager will always tend to keep his subordinates as happy as possible with the possibilities given. He or she must convert an adverse situation into a win-win scenario. This often means that the employees will have their choices limited in order to maintain the opposing views balanced. This is completely opposite to how a leader would manage the situation. While facing an adverse situation, they would try to open the issue to new options. Innovation by getting people excited and get them to believe in a project.

It could be said that managers want to put out the small fires as quickly as possible, whether as leaders would use the fire to their advantage, even though there might be a risk involved. Risk often drives leaders, it makes manager anxious instead by kicking their survival instincts in. This is why leaders will usually feel bored by mundane tasks, when managers feel the most comfortable in them.

Relations with Others

According to Zaleznik, managers avoid being alone. Being in a solitary activity makes them anxious, and reinforces his point by talking about some studies he directed. An image of a lonely boy with a violin would be shown to both a manager and a leader, and they were asked to describe what was happening. The former would talk about what it meant to the boy's family and their relationship, wheter as the latter would talk about the boy's lonely struggles to become better and master his skills.

Throught this experience, the author makes a point in saying that managers always tend to seek company, draw them into their activity and sometimes have it hard to relate to others. On the other hand, he says that leaders have a bigger capacity to empatize with relatable characters, using more emotionally provoking words, such as "intense" or "deeply".

The way that these roles communicate with their peers is vastly different. A manager will always tend to communicate with signals. These are much more ambiguous that messages, and thus can be interpreted in various ways. This is such because if a co-worker did not like the signal that the manager gave him, he can try to re-interpret it in order to avoid conflict. The problem with this is that managers are then often described as insincere by their peers, because of this common practice. But as Zaleznik says: "Managers strive to convert win-lose into win-win situations as part of the process of reconciling differences among people and maintaining balances of power". They will also use time to their advantage, as sometimes with time passing situations might have new compromises into play. This means that clear win-lose situations might end up with both parties happy. This also makes managers come up sometimes as dishonest and even manipulative. On the contrary, leaders will tend to communicate with clear messages, not open to any other interpretation. This is why they are viewed as more sincere than managers, even though these messages sometimes bring conflict into the table, and also why they are commonly described with very intense adjectives, whether that be from love or hate.

Senses of Self

For talking about the personalities of the two roles discussed in the article, Zaleznik uses the two basic personality types from William James' book named The Varieties of Religious Experience. James believes that you are either a "once-born" or a "twice-born". The first type is someone who has had a relatively easy life, with no major setbacks or hard upbringings which shaped them. The latter though, has had an experience or condition in his life that has made him become different, more detached from familiar elements.

Zaleznik believes that managers tend to be "once-born", due to their love for familiar situations and sense of belonging. As a manager sees himself as the one in charge of maintaining order and balance we can see the perfect fit for that personality type, seeking harmony. Leaders do not have that sense of belonging, which separates them from familiar environments and thus do not depend on them to thrive. This makes them clear "twice-borns". As Toto Wolff, Team Principal & CEO of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team, said in the "Beyond Victory with Nico Rosberg" podcast, he usually discusses the differences between nature and nurture. He is a believer that truly successful individuals are a combination of both. We are all born with our special talents, hence what comes by nature. But it is also the love, or lack of love, from our parents and relationships with friends that shape you as well, nurture. But in order to become really successful in each one's field, you need that extra motivation, and hat motivation needs to have a source. In Toto's case, it was a harsh upbringing with his dad's early death and his mother's struggles to economically maintain him and his sister. The humiliation that those financial struggles sat very deep in him and made him try to overcompensate with outstanding achievements. He felt let down by his parents because he was dependant on them and wasn't able to take control of his life. So once he was able to look after himself, he sought out to overachieve in order to provide for his family. But then again, he talks about how the podcast host, Nico Rosberg, would be the opposite of his case. Brought up in an extremely wealthy and famous family in Monaco, son of a Formula 1 world champion, he still managed to go through his karting career facing the toughest opponents and sacrificing a great part of his life to achieve his goals. He could have taken it easily and lived off his father's accomplishments like most of his peers, but he still chose a path that was much more hostile. Nico believes that this is because he takes must of his personality by nature, regardless of his upbringing, and that by accomplishing this success he gets moments of self-acceptance, reassurance.

Development of Leadership

For all people, their development always begins with their family. This is valid whether they had an easy upbrigning or a difficult separation from their parents. But these events shape you as a person, and in turn, in your development towards leadership. Take for example someone who had a good childhood. These "once-borns" as described earlier can associate the gratifications recieved in their upbringing to find goals which will give similar gratifications. They are usually at piece with what they want in life and what they can achieve from it.

But if this has not been the case. These complications and isolations have been magnified by a feeling of having special traits or capabilities that make you stand out. This can give the person a profound involvement in whatever it is that he's good at. He or she is no longer bound to gratification from his environment, but on his achievements and progress. Usually these profiles can be misinterpreted as they might not excel academically. Many examples in history have had this profiling, such as Albert Einstein. Dwight Eisenhower is another example of person who did not have a bright carrer and later turned out to be quite brilliant. This is due to the inherent trait for a "second-born" to be uninterested or bored with mundane tasks.

Zaleznik makes special emphasis on the importante of a leader's development to have a special one-on-one bond with an important figure, such as a teacher or superior. These relationships are proven to be very enriching on such profiles. These figures take a risk by betting on a young adult or child's talent and compromise possible emotional involvement. This does not have to necessarily pay off, but the fact of getting involved in such risk is already really important in the way of a leader.

Can Organizations Develop Leaders?

This topic is greatly related to the previous. Many organizations nowadays organize their employees on different task structures, such as accounting, sales, logistics, etc. This means that interactions between peers are usually with people who already have their same knowledge and traits. Does this mean that companies are preventing valuable one-on-one relationships between senior employees and junior potential leaders?

Some companies try different methods, such as grouping their employees on task structures as said above but with a twist. Instead of trying to limit competition amonst equals, they encourage it. This is made to try and rise production, but can lead to almost inevitable conflict. It is really difficult to put limits on rivalry, and it can become a real problem. Another company in the oil sector tries a different approach. The CEO will regularly assign a junior employee to assist him on tasks, thus creating a simbyotic relationship. At the end of the year, said employee is assigned to a position of importance and responsibility instead of the apprentice position he or she would have occupied.

This approach is very good in creating good leaders. Zaleznik firmly believes that one-on-one relationships are key for this to happen due to its emotional interchange. Some CEOs and higher ranking employees might feel threatened when having a trainee assigned to assist him in fear of being exposed or surpassed in some aspects, which makes it harder for leaders to arise. It is really important for leaders to be able to tolerate confrontation as well as aggressive interchange in order to build up the emotional skills they need to survive.

Conclusion

As seen during the article, management and leadership require two very different styles. Managers have a passive attitude towards goals, and they surge from necessities. Leaders will be more active and work out of desire. More than trying to have one person to be both a good manager and leader, it is encouraged to have both kinds of people in a company. Without managers, the company will sucumb in the chaos that would arise under leader conditions. But without leaders, a company would fail to keep up with the competition and lose power.

This is why there is a need for both. The problem is that big multinationals do not encourage mentor relationships, one-on-one exchanges that prove immensly valuable to create good leadership skills. With such a neutral and orderly work environment, there is no challenge to spark an interest on the employees. It is important then for companies to also include the conditions for leaders to be able to develop and inspire their peers into success, while also keep on training good managers. This way, great ideas and ambicious goals will keep the company successful while management ensures enough stability to keep it running.

Annotated bibliography

Zaleznik, Abraham. "Managers and leaders: Are they different." (1977): 67-78.

This wiki page is based on this article, written by Abraham Zaleznik. Professor at the Harvard Business School for four decades, he published this award winning article in 1977 which was then republished in 1992 and 2004. This is a very recommended read to gain a perspective on how management and leadership back then and their main disparities, as well as how companies can try to develop the best managers and leaders.