Leadership vs. Management: What type of CEO are you?

Leadership and management, how much overlap is between the two? Do you know when to lead and when to manage?

Today’s tip of the week comes from Vistage. Vistage facilitates confidential peer advisory groups for CEOs and other senior leaders, focusing on solving challenges, accelerating growth, and improving business performance.

This week’s article explores a number of topics that can assist CEOs to better focus on the contrasts between leadership and management. Key topics included:

• Leadership vs. Management: What’s the difference?
• What does a good leader do?
• What does a good manager do?
• How is leadership different from management?
• As CEO or owner, do you need to be a leader or a manager?
• Best of both worlds

The article breaks out the roles of leaders and managers, and how they often merge in the middle. It also discusses the different focuses, skill sets, and priorities of each role.  Leaders set the direction, have a vision, set expectations, and make crucial decisions. They drive company goals and empower others. Leaders face much more volatility than management.

Managers on the other hand often develop and organize, meeting specific planning objectives, and assist with guiding those they supervise. They manage the day-to-day tasks, and their roles tend to be much more predictable.

“Leadership is about creating a path; management is about following that path” “Both must foster open communication with their teams”

It is true that CEOs must frequently encompass both skill sets…. This is why Executives often find themselves in the center of the leadership vs. management Venn Diagram. There are always activities within their scope that require management skills and more.

“Is the CEO a leader or a manager? The answer is yes, and the good news is that both skill sets can be learned”

A good article that helps break out the different roles between Leadership and Management. It offers some sound advice for those aspiring to learn more about leadership. Here is the link to the article Leadership vs. Management: What type of CEO are you?