Leaders and Managers Should Both Drive Innovation

What’s the difference between a manager and a leader?

It’s a long-running subject of discussion. There are many differences, but one of the most important is that managers are paid to take the short-range view, while leaders—especially those focused on innovation—are paid to take the long-range view.

Managers are concerned with the speed of today’s production run, or how many calls the sales staff makes in a week, or the current conversion rate of a marketing campaign. These are important indicators, because an organization succeeds by doing countless small things over and over again and adding value each time. A good manager is worth every penny they’re paid, because they make sure the organization makes its daily, weekly, and monthly goals—and stays ahead of the competition.

Leaders, while supervising and supporting managers, have the critically important responsibility of charting the course for the future. They get people to understand and believe in the organization’s vision and to work with them to achieve the organization’s goals. They focus on allocating resources to create value, saying to their subordinates, “I’d like you to work on A while I handle B.” Action-based-leadership is demonstrated through leading people by example and enabling them in their roles.

Speaking of the differences between leaders and managers, it’s become a common axiom to say, “The main difference between leaders and managers is that leaders have people follow them while managers have people who work for them.” To be honest, this seems more like a facile business-book slogan that a real nugget of truth. In most organizations that I’ve ever worked with, the leader directs a team of managers. The leader signs the paychecks of his or her managers. Make no mistake: the managers work for the leader. (And in publicly held companies, the leader, in turn, works for the board of directors, who can fire the leader if they choose.) What truly separates leaders from managers are their job descriptions. They have different areas of responsibility. Both are vitally important to the ability of the organization to stay One Step Ahead.

My point is that nearly everyone in your organization is both a leader and an employee. This is the whole point of employee empowerment—the idea that every employee needs to have some of the qualities of a leader. No one in your organization should be relegated to “just following orders.” In the never-ending innovation race, that’s a sure-fire recipe for falling behind.