The 5 Differences Between Leaders and Managers

The 5 Differences Between Leaders and Managers – Can Someone Be the Best of Both?

While working in the field of Asset Management formerly known as Maintenance and Reliability for over 30 years I have worked with my share of Managers and Leaders. Those who have known me for years know that I started in the field as a Pipefitter Apprentice, worked as a Journeyman and Team Leader for a number of years, did a stint as a Maintenance Supervisor, went to night school to become a Reliability Engineer and then as a business owner working with customers around the world.

In all this time I had the pleasure of working with dozens of really good leaders from Equipment Operators and Tradespeople to Supervisors and Corporate Executives. I have always said that great leaders can be found at all levels of every company the shame is most are never recognized for the contributions they make in improving equipment, process reliability, and creating a safe workplace.

In that same time frame I have worked with or for hundreds of Managers but only a small handful of them would be what I would consider a leader.

Having stated this I see four distinct differences between Leaders and Managers; we believe we have a world full of Leaders yet for some strange reason there are very few Managers who are Leaders and those who do meet this criteria are truly a blessing to work with.

The 5 Differences Between Managers and Leaders

1. Leaders are visionaries and Managers are administrators – Leaders despise the status quo, they rarely believe that they themselves or those they work with have done all they can to ensure we make the best products in terms of quality or cost. They are always looking for ways to improve what we make and how we make it and are highly engaged with those responsible for making the product and those charged with keeping the equipment running. Managers administer the goals and direction of their boss, they focus their efforts primarily on controlling costs and obtaining their personal goals. They often lack a thorough understanding of products you make, the equipment that makes it and the roles and responsibilities of those are not direct reports.
2. Leaders motivate the people they work with and Managers oversee and regulate what people do – Leaders understand what it takes to motivate people and the demonstrate those behaviors on a daily basis. They engage people in conversation, actively listen and reflect knowing the ideas that inspire innovation and improvement often come from such conversations. They give credit where credit is due because they know this behavior inspires trust and engagement. The Manager in the meantime is focused on results; how much product did we make, how much overtime did people work, did everyone record their time correctly and do our numbers look better than last month?
3. Leaders listen and seek to understand, Managers offer standard answers and excuses – If there is one trait every leader I have ever worked with had it was the ability to listen, assess, understand and learn. The best leaders truly believe that when you stop learning you stop growing. They also understand that continuous improvement can be made at every level within an organization. So when you have made it to the top of the ladder who do you learn from? Great leaders will all tell you that if you are doing your job correctly, you will continuously learn from those you lead. The manager on the other hand can feels that listening is a distraction to the information rolling around in his/her brain at the time. Rather than engaging in spur of the moment conversations, the manager will often interrupt conversation to “schedule a meeting”. If the standard answer doesn’t appease the employee the manager will then resort to excuses. “That all sounds great but right now we don’t have the time or resources.
4. Leaders take risks based on long term gains, Managers take risks in hopes of short term results – The words continuous improvement aren’t buzz words for the Leader they are a lifestyle and as a result they tend to focus on people and behaviors. While the Leader is interested in data they by far prefer leading indicators to results, preferring to look at the future as opposed to what is already the past. Using these leading indicators they will invest in new equipment, people and technology to grow their business and market share. The Manager is focused on day to day results worried that what we did today could have a direct impact on his or her monthly or quarterly goals. As a result the Manager will often continue to run equipment when pro-active technologies have indicated it is in the process of failing, cut or add overtime with little warning, increase production rates to make up for equipment downtime and focus more time on cutting costs as opposed to improving productivity. The manager talks a good game when it comes to health, safety and environment but will ignore minor violations in favor of reducing downtime where as the Leader will reinforce the safer, more environmentally sound decision all the while stressing the importance of a safe workplace.

Leaders encourage and thrive on open debate, Managers provide direction and expect compliance – This is this trait of the Leader that limits his/her assent up the corporate ladder and in my opinion is why we see so few Managers who are great Leaders. The leader sees debate as an opportunity to learn and teach. They love to be challenged be it in a public or private setting and encourage those they work with to do so. They don’t believe in the words “that won’t work” or “we tried that already” because they have already proven both to be wrong on numerous occasions. They tend to continuously challenge policy or directives that they believe might limit innovation or improvement and view having to lay people off or cut benefits as failures. The Manager simply follows and applies directives while relaying the logic his/her managers are smart people who know what needs to be done and how to do it. As a result he/she firmly believes they should not challenge corporate policy or directives and that those who work for them should have the same belief. The manager views any public or private challenge or debate as a threat or insubordinate behavior.

The Rarest of Jewels – The Manager/Leader

The shame of calling out the differences between Leaders and Managers is they should be one in the same. It would be wonderful if all of our managers were truly good Leaders but the harsh reality is Manager/Leaders are quite rare. The Manager/Leader understands corporate goals, policy and directives but understands that in order for he/she to be successful they have to be able to motivate and value people. They are able to find a solid balance between driving innovation and improvement and reporting the numbers their managers are interested in. They have found a way to challenge their managers without offending them and are careful to let his/her leaders know that while he/she encourages open debate his/her managers may not. The Manager/Leader enjoys the role of being a mentor and knows the importance of building real lasting relationships that are based on trust and respect. He/she is able to write detailed performance appraisals without asking their leaders what they have accomplished because they already know. The Manager/Leader will fight for their leaders when it comes time for promotions and raises even encouraging them to leave for better opportunities. At the same time the Manager/Leader will have a difficult time with their own promotion, they will have a difficult time leaving knowing that there is more that can be done to improve. Lastly the Manager/Leader has high expectations of his/her employees at the same time they will model the behaviors they expect to see and are very effective at eliminating poor performers.

Doug Plucknette is a Principal and RCM Discipline Leader for Allied Reliability Group. For more articles on Leadership, Maintenance, Asset Care and Reliability check out his blog at www.rcmblitzblog.com or visit our website at www.rcmblitz.com