Ah, the age-old debate: what’s the difference between a manager and a leader? Which one is better? Are they really that different?

A leader is someone who people willingly follow. It could be a line leader, a manager, or even a local county commissioner. The key is willingly. A manager is a specific type of leader that is found within an organizational hierarchy. In Requisite Organization, Elliot Jaques defines a manager as:

a person who is held accountable for the outputs of others, for producing and sustaining a team capable of producing those outputs, and for giving effective leadership to that team. (From Requisite Organization, Page Pair 35)

He goes on to further define leadership (Page Pair 95) as:

the accountability in some, but not all, roles to influence one or more to willingly accept the leader’s purpose and goals, and to move in the direction set by the leader by suffusing authority with leadership practices appropriate for the role.

A manager is accountable for a team achieving a monthly sales target. In order to do this effectively, a manager will need to spend time coaching, motivating, and supporting their employees to perform well and sell effectively. These are common leadership skills expected by most organizations. The manager role cannot be fulfilled without effective leadership. A new term should be used to signify the role within an organization: Managerial leader. A managerial leader is a specific type of leader: they lead within an organization to achieve assigned goals and develop a team capable of producing current and future goals.

Leadership is not a position in an organization. It’s a feature of many different positions. A front-line employee could be the informal floor leader when the manager is away. They could help move a person from one machine to another when the workflow changes, or they could send someone on break as production pauses. Does that mean they are held accountable for the outputs of the team? Absolutely not, because they are not a manager.

A manager is accountable for the outputs of others, which means they must get people to willingly follow their lead in order to achieve the assigned outputs. Leadership is the means by which a manager successfully fulfills the duty of their role, but it is not an organizational position. Outcomes matter, but so do the way in which they were achieved. A managerial leader’s goal is to build trust during every interaction they have with their employees. Leadership is the means by which they do that.

So, why is this important? Your leadership success is the sum of your daily interactions with your employees. You can’t have one meeting, review, or conversation and expect it to impact employee behavior. You have to commit to leading better each day, doing the small things that forge a relationship built on trust. Managerial leaders put their effort and focus on the things they do each day rather than big leadership gestures.

Elliot Jaques spent a great deal of his life researching and writing about managerial leadership. Not many people know about his system and leadership philosophy, so I wanted to share some of it with you today. It’s had a profound impact on my life and leadership ability, including inspiring a lot of my own thoughts and writing.

Jaques created what he called the 10 Managerial Leadership Practices, which are intended to define the leadership accountabilities of a managerial leader’s position. I’m going to be sharing those 10 Managerial Leadership Practices next week.

Until next time,

Rick

P.S. Forward this email along to a fellow managerial leader who could benefit from next week’s issue.

P.P.S. My latest article was just published in Chief Talent Officer!