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The difference between managers and leaders

Two roles, often held by the same person

A manager is responsible for making sure the work of the business gets done properly: planning it, organising the resources, and controlling the results against a target.
A leader is responsible for taking people somewhere: setting a direction, persuading people that it is worth going, and influencing how they behave.
Most senior staff do both. They are separated here because the skills are different, and a business can be well managed and badly led, or the reverse.

Function	What it means in practice
Planning	Setting objectives and deciding how resources will be used to meet them — production schedules, staffing rosters, budgets
Organising	Putting people, equipment and materials where they are needed, and defining who is responsible for what
Leading / directing	Instructing and supervising staff day to day so the plan is carried out
Controlling	Measuring actual results against the plan, and acting on the difference — this is where variance analysis is used

Set the direction — decide where the business should be in three years, not what happens on Tuesday.
Influence and inspire — get people to commit to that direction rather than merely comply with instructions.
Model the values — staff copy what senior people actually do, especially about ethics and safety.
Drive change — persuade people through the disruption of a new system, a new site or a new market.

Manager skills

Technical — enough understanding of the work to judge whether it is being done properly.
Organisational — planning, scheduling, prioritising, allocating resources.
Analytical — reading financial reports and spotting the number that has moved.
Communication — giving instructions clearly and checking they were understood.

Leader skills

Vision — being able to describe a future the business could reach.
Communication and persuasion — making that future credible to people whose jobs it changes.
Emotional intelligence — reading how people are reacting, and responding to it.
Decisiveness — committing under uncertainty, because a direction that is never chosen is not a direction.
Integrity — people follow someone whose behaviour matches what they say.

A business with strong management and weak leadership runs efficiently in the direction it is already pointing — and is overtaken when the market changes, because nobody set a new direction.
A business with strong leadership and weak management has an exciting strategy that is never delivered, because nobody built the schedule, the budget or the controls.
Growing businesses fail at exactly this point: the founder who led brilliantly at 15 staff has to become a manager of managers at 150, and the skills are not the same.

A manager is responsible for making sure the work of the business gets done properly: planning it, organising the resources, and controlling the results against a target.
A leader is responsible for taking people somewhere: setting a direction, persuading people that it is worth going, and influencing how they behave.
Most senior staff do both. They are separated here because the skills are different, and a business can be well managed and badly led, or the reverse.

Function	What it means in practice
Planning	Setting objectives and deciding how resources will be used to meet them — production schedules, staffing rosters, budgets
Organising	Putting people, equipment and materials where they are needed, and defining who is responsible for what
Leading / directing	Instructing and supervising staff day to day so the plan is carried out
Controlling	Measuring actual results against the plan, and acting on the difference — this is where variance analysis is used

Set the direction — decide where the business should be in three years, not what happens on Tuesday.
Influence and inspire — get people to commit to that direction rather than merely comply with instructions.
Model the values — staff copy what senior people actually do, especially about ethics and safety.
Drive change — persuade people through the disruption of a new system, a new site or a new market.

Manager skills

Technical — enough understanding of the work to judge whether it is being done properly.
Organisational — planning, scheduling, prioritising, allocating resources.
Analytical — reading financial reports and spotting the number that has moved.
Communication — giving instructions clearly and checking they were understood.

Leader skills

Vision — being able to describe a future the business could reach.
Communication and persuasion — making that future credible to people whose jobs it changes.
Emotional intelligence — reading how people are reacting, and responding to it.
Decisiveness — committing under uncertainty, because a direction that is never chosen is not a direction.
Integrity — people follow someone whose behaviour matches what they say.

A business with strong management and weak leadership runs efficiently in the direction it is already pointing — and is overtaken when the market changes, because nobody set a new direction.
A business with strong leadership and weak management has an exciting strategy that is never delivered, because nobody built the schedule, the budget or the controls.
Growing businesses fail at exactly this point: the founder who led brilliantly at 15 staff has to become a manager of managers at 150, and the skills are not the same.