Management versus Leadership

See Jane Lead: 99 Ways for Women to Take Charge at Work and in Life
by Lois P. Frankel, Ph.D.

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The demise of command-and-control leadership has illuminated the differences between management and leadership. Of late, much has been written on the topic, but the difference is best summarized by a simple phrase: You manage functions and lead people. For example, you manage budgets, hiring processes, quantifiable outcomes, or information systems, but you can't manage people. The command-and-control style was an attempt to manage people, but as I've pointed out, it ultimately proved ineffective as workplace attitudes changed. People don't want to be managed - they want to be led, and they want to be led by caring, humane leaders. In this regard, management is more closely aligned with masculine leadership traits, whereas leadership is more in tune with a woman's strengths.

I believe women are ideally suited to do both - manage and lead. Why? Look at it this way: If you're able to schedule your hair appointment to coincide with picking up the family's dry cleaning but before you have to take the dog to the kennel so that you can leave on a business trip, then managing a schedule, budget, or project is no sweat. On the other hand, when you're responsible for getting the entire family on board with taking a trip to see your in-laws the same weekend that everyone wanted to watch the Super Bowl, then leading a reluctant staff in an organizational change effort becomes a breeze. From running households to PTA meetings and church fund-raisers, it's likely you've honed the skills needed to lead and manage.

The importance of differentiating leadership from management was brought home during an association conference presentation that I made several years ago. This was a group of people involved in various aspects of the hospitality industry - conference planners, travel agents, representatives of hotels, and so on. After one man disagreed with how I differentiated leadership and management, a woman who led the staff of housekeepers at a well-known hotel chain took issue with him. She agreed wholeheartedly that you can't manage people, and added that if anyone ever doubts it, just try to manage people whose sole function is to clean hotel rooms. There is nothing more straightforward or easier to measure than how the rooms are cleaned, but getting people to do it well is another story. Success in this field, she insisted, depends on leadership, not management.

Whether it's housekeepers, zookeepers, or barkeepers - you simply can't manage people. Trying to do so is a bit like teaching a pig to sing: You frustrate yourself and annoy the pig. The ways in which women, without formal control, authority, or title, have gained the support of followers by exhibiting leadership qualities, not management skills, hold the key to successful leadership in the new millennium.

A New Definition of Power and Leadership

During a presentation I was making to a group of health care providers on the topic of motivating today's workforce, I commented that the new generation of employees no longer "salutes" those in authority. A ripple of agreement in the form of heads vehemently nodding and polite laughter came from the back of the auditorium, where I could see a row of middle-aged men and women in uniform. I decided to enlist them in underscoring my contention. Pointing to the back row, I said, "It seems to me as if you would be in a good position to talk to us about employees saluting." These participants from the military willingly and poignantly described the shift that has taken place over the past two decades: Personnel no longer do as they are told simply because someone in a position of power tells them to. They also explained that this has caused difficulties with some longer-term senior staff who could not adjust to new and more appropriate styles of leadership.

In the workplace - and not only the military workplace - leaders have traditionally relied on what's called position power. This is the power and authority that typically accompanied titles such as supervisor, manager, director, and vice president, or sergeant, lieutenant, and general. Leaders relied on position power because inherent to it was the threat of punishment if their directives were not followed. "My way or the highway" typified reliance on this form of power. But new-generation workers no longer respect position power. They have seen political leaders with position power publicly debased because of personal peccadilloes, watched as those with position power unceremoniously terminated their company-loyal parents, and experienced firsthand a decline in respect for position power in the family. Position power doesn't motivate or faze them.

Since women have not been the primary beneficiaries of position power, they have not learned to rely on it. In fact, women are uncomfortable with even using the word power in relation to themselves. My interest in women and power was piqued in the late 1980s when I had a private psychotherapy practice working with career women. I would often comment to clients who held senior-level corporate positions that it seemed incongruent that one so powerful would allow herself to be treated in this way or that. The response was always some form of Me? Powerful? I'm not powerful. In my audiotape Women and Power: Understanding Your Fear/Releasing Your Potential, I explain the reasons for this:

• Social messages learned early in childhood imply that power diminishes femininity.
• Because men have traditionally wielded the power, for a woman to think of herself as powerful means that she must take power away from important male figures in her life - father, brother, grandfather, teachers, or the like.
• Powerful women are often singled out and labeled with any number of pejoratives.
• Until recently, there has been a paucity of powerful female role models.

Since noticing the response of the women in my practice, I have begun each presentation that I make related to power in the workplace by singling out a woman and saying, "You look pretty powerful to me." With few exceptions, the woman shifts uncomfortably in her seat and mumbles something in denial. Next, I turn to a man in the audience and make the same comment. With even fewer exceptions, the response from the man is a comment or body language that in some way affirms my observation. The ensuing discussion of power and what it means clarifies the distinctions between male and female definitions of power. Whereas men often define being powerful as getting someone else to do what they want or having control over others, women tend to define it as getting to do what they want or having control over themselves.

It certainly isn't that women are not powerful, because they are. It's that women wield power differently from men and in a way that better meets the expectations of contemporary followers. By necessity, they have had to rely on an assortment of techniques to meet their needs and the needs of those who depend on them, which is why women possess a wider array of influence skills and exhibit less concern for position power or command-and-control leadership. Women's power is often derived from gaining allegiance and loyalty by understanding and addressing the needs of others. Women not only are socialized to do this better but in fact have had years of practice at it.

Similarly, a common theme ran through the interviews I conducted for this book. Nearly every woman, when asked what constitutes her leadership philosophy, included some mention of values-based leadership. Values formed the core of how women went about enacting everyday leadership behaviors. From developing a vision to creating a high-performing team and taking risks, women returned time and again to their values to determine the "rightness" of their direction. This reveals yet one more way in which the uniqueness of a woman's perspective forges a leadership model that is so critical for our time.

Copyright © 2007 by Lois P. Frankel, Ph.D.

About the Author

Dr. Lois P. Frankel is the president of Corporate Coaching International as well as the author of several books and numerous articles. She is internationally recognized as an expert in the field of workplace behavior. With over twenty years of experience in human resources development, she is a frequently invited guest on talk radio, television, conferences, corporate workshops, and retreats.