Managers and Leaders

Employees are often confused when their organization talks about leadership. They assume that leadership automatically comes by virtue of seniority in an organization and the power of their designations. But this is not true.
When an organization talks about leadership it has to nurture the young talents and groom the future leaders. It must create an organization that allows new ideas and revolutionary thinking. The organization cuture will determine if the right people are recruited , or if they are awarded and encouraged.

But first it is necessary to understand the difference between managers and leaders. These are some of the important differences
1. Managers are by virtue of seniority and leaders are by by virtue of of their abilities.
2. Managers are for coping with complexity whereas leaders are for coping with change.
3. A managers core competencies are planning and budgeting, organizing and staffing,communicating, delegating etc. On the other hand a leader is like a visionary who sets the direction and has the ability to motivate the people to see the same vision.
4. The managers scope of work is limited to his project or his direct or indirect reportees. But the leader's scope of work can span beyond than to peers ,bosses and maybe even outside the organization or the sphere of work. Does all of this seem too vague ? Maybe, yes. It is not necessary to evaluate whether someone exhibits leadership behavior or not. The manifestation itself may be rudimentary. It has to be seen whether there is potential in a candidate.

There is a wonderful article by Daniel Goleman which talks about the skills that make a leader. He called it the emotional intelligence. There are 5 components of this emotional intelligence Self-Awareness - The most important factor here is the ability to do realistic self assessment. First one must know the limits , then they can hope to go beyond it.
Self Regulation - Human beings behave are impulsive. There are moments of glory and moments of dejection. But leaders have an inherent capacity to stop and think. They are able to suspend judgement before taking action. They are able to control their impulsive actions Motivation - Leaders can assess themselves and then they have a strong urge, a compelling feeling to achieve something more. This urge generates a passion ,something telling in the mind to go for it.
Empathy - At different stages there are chances of alienation from peers , followers or near and dear ones because of a leader's continuous optimism and urge for achievement. It is necessary to be able to understand the emotional state of the others who contribute to this urge. Thus sensitivity to others and a genuine concern for relationships add to the ability to empathize. Social Skills - This is about belief in oneself and the ability to make others see the same dream. Great leaders were by virtue of their great followers.

So you see what an organization means when it talks about leadership? Well maybe sometimes the organizations are themselves not aware of it themselves and merely harp on the popular rhetoric. But the truth is there is a leader and a follower in every human being each to a varying degree of capacity. Keeping aside the jargons , both these roles are equally important. While a leader may be enshrined in his own vision , the follower may have the emotional quotient to follow multiple visions. Both of these comprise a total human being.