This question comes up often: what are leadership vs management characteristics? If you are doing things right, the manager and leader should be the same. Someone who is managing others and helping them be successful is also leading them by creating a clear vision for what everyone is working towards.
A simple rule of thumb is leadership may refer to strategy and management may refer to tactics. A successful organization needs both. Depending on the size of your team, sometimes different leaders play different roles (i.e. one person is the “vision” creator and the other is the “execution” implementer). In this scenario, I’d argue both people are leaders, and the executor is also focusing more on management.
To take a closer look, consider the following traits associated with each:
Someone with management characteristics focuses on:
- keeps the trains running on time
- is highly organized
- motivates team members to succeed
- ensures everyone has the resources needed to succeed
- communicates when performance is good or bad
Someone with leadership characteristics focuses on:
- articulates a clear vision
- sets realistic and well-defined goals
- cares about the members of the team
- ensures we are working on the right objectives
- sets an example by doing herself anything she’d ask of the team
