There's a difference between "management" and "leadership" . . .

. . . according to Robert X. Cringely, and today's "post-industrial" management requires more leadership.

I think it's too strong. Plenty of organizations would do fine just to have better old-fashioned management. But he's probably right that some organizations would benefit from the advice. In fact, the advice is similar to one of the key ideas in Charles Koch's The Science of Success, which I recommend. (Management by Hayek!)

Comments

[John Agno]

While most firms have become adept at defining financial and operational success, most find that the softer side of people performance is often the hardest to quantify.

Yet, employees represent the largest cost in most enterprises.

Measurement typically is focused on what was accomplished but how things are accomplished within a company is important.

Since all the work is done through relationships, it is important that managers learn leadership skills to better manage relationships. After all, leadership is simply an interactive conversation that pulls people toward becoming
comfortable with the language of personal responsibility and commitment.

[JorgXMcKie]

I have a lot of trouble with manager/leader comparisons. My early work was the study of emerging political leadership, and I've pretty much decided that what is generally called leadership is not, and that true Leadership is not quite a unicorn but is incredibly rare.

Without going into to too much detail, let me suggest that the basic difference between managers and leaders is the difference between "have to" and "want to" for 'the followers' or 'the led'.

True leaders don't seem to have to give very many 'orders' as such. People move toward the goals of the leader because they *want* to. They also try just about anything that is allowed and look to the leader for feedback.

We sometimes call this 'charisma' but I'm not sure we're defining that properly either.

Anyway, it's not impossible for managers to do a better job of 'leading' than 'directing' if they are willing to give up punitive control. I don't see much of that happening.

Managers (attempt to) get groups of people to desired known destinations while implementing certain restrictive rules (like efficiency or comfort). Leaders get groups of people to different destinations while dropping any restrictive rules that aren't helping. Leaders know the difference between rules that are working and rules that aren't.

[Ian Pratt]

Good comment, “love the statement that leadership is not quite a unicorn”. A lot of people tell me that some tasks are management tasks while others are leadership tasks – which I disagree with. I think that leadership is how you do the tasks rather than what tasks you do