I know this is well-trodden ground and academia and the press are rife with arguments and debates about the difference between Leadership and Management and that we should not confuse one for the other.

John Kotter in his article ‘Management is (still) not Leadership' states that it drives him crazy when people use the words Leadership and Management synonymously. He sees management as employing complex processes involving planning, budgeting problem-solving, etc - To do the things that an organisation does well with predictable efficiency and consistent quality. Leadership, on the other hand, is about vision, empowerment, and creating change - It’s about behaviours and not attributes.

Similarly, Markus Buckingham from First Break All the Rules fame makes a distinction between Management and Leadership, proposing that management is a key skill and Managers are not simply Leaders in waiting - and challenges some of the conventional maxims like Managers do things right. Leaders do the right things- He asserts that such maxims cast the manager as a plodder and the leader as a sophisticated visionary executive, and argue that this differentiation encourages managers to label themselves as Leaders since they are most likely to prefer to think of themselves as ‘visionary’ than as a ‘plodder’.

His research indicates that the important difference between a ‘great manager’ and a ‘great leader’ is one of focus. Great Managers ‘look inwards’ at the individual, goals, and motivations, they pay attention to all of the subtle and nuanced differences. Whilst Great Leaders ‘look outwards’ at the competition, market forces, and the future, and they also focus on patterns, connections, and a way to cut through complexity.
All of these are valid comments and statements, however, they do tend to reinforce a dualistic either or frame with clearly delineated boundaries. These boundaries are being challenged as the issues in the world become more complex, interrelated, and wicked. There is a need for a more distributed and integrated model of Leadership, that is responsive, adaptable, co-creative, and accountable.

Leadership in this sense is a demonstrated behaviour that is valued within the organisation irrespective of the position it emanates from. The designated title of manager within this context critically relies on the key behaviours of Leadership to maximise potentiality. Leadership becomes a vital component of management as it adds both an organic and systemic element to what can be perceived as mechanistic. We could go as far as to say that there can be no manager who is not a leader.

Likewise, a distributed and integrated model of Leadership needs some of the key attributes of management to promote and sustain it. A vision needs a plan to ground it, a story is populated with people grappling with real dilemmas, and empowerment is achieved through listening and real dialogue which takes organisational skills and a real investment in time. Feedback and follow-through are scheduled processes and ‘being' a Leader intentionally incorporates a rigorous process of self-inquiry and reflection supported by critical feedback from important stakeholders.

Leadership needs some of the key attributes of management to ground it and make it effective and a manager lives the behaviours associated with leadership to be effective.

Dr. Eugene Fernandez is the Managing Director of Metanoa and has over 25 years of experience in consulting, coaching, and facilitation, spanning various industries and sectors globally.

He has held senior roles in Organisational Consulting and Human Capital including roles as a Company Director and Program Director for Australia’s leading Business Schools, Melbourne Business School, Australian Graduate School of Management, Macquarie Graduate School of Management, and the Australian Institute of Management. Over 5000 managers have participated in his interventions.

Discussions
Discussions on the Australian Institute of Company Directors forum highlighted the association between Power and Leadership I commented that - I am also inspired and really admire people who without formal authority or positional power inspire and motivate others to do things and to achieve. An example I could think about was Mandela during his time in prison and after retirement and Marie Bashir the long-standing Governor of NSW who had power vested in her position but who demonstrated leadership through the breath of her understanding and compassion in the role.

And later I commented: We are in the end talking about aspects of the same 'Elephant' - as the famous story goes about 6 blind men each touching various aspects of the elephant e.g the leg became a pillar etc, highlighting the various interpretations of the same truth. My thesis, in the end, is that if you are a Manager, then Leadership is as integral to the role as all the other parts that constitute the elephant. It is integral to the whole.

There are aspects of management that are definitely forward-looking such as planning, organising, and forecasting, and aspects such as the controlling, monitoring, and review functions that rely on looking backward. Leadership also employs both - the forward-looking visionary, reach for the stars/Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) view and the backward-looking that connects with the rich core of the organisation via values, myths, archetypes, etc.

Comment by Professor Vikas Bhatnagar
Very interesting post-Eugene with a very apt message and insights. Love your systemic approach to studying organizational phenomena. I am sure your clients would be very fortunate to have you consulting them.

It is quite intriguing how we break a phenomenon that is a continuum into discrete parts, cipher it as 'leadership' and 'management', and then spend energies in de-cyphering the constructs and meaning. We also tend to add complexity in organization by breaking down a continuum into many discrete parts and missing the systemic and holistic nature of a phenomenon.

In order to understand a portion of the whole, it is good to detach the portion but is important to be aware that the portion is part of the whole, which after the understanding, should be placed back in the whole and phenomenon understood holistically. We get into problems (read add complexities) when the detached portion assumes a wholeness of its own and refuses to fit back into the original phenomenon.

Eugene Reply to Professor Bhatnagar
I agree with you about our unique skill at dissecting and fragmenting what is essentially a continuum. The danger lies when we construe these man-made constructs and boundaries as real and rigid. There is an integral nature to all observed phenomena and the non-dual is a tradition removed from the Western mindset, (modernist) which is further rooted in the myth of rationality.