Managers vs. Leaders: What’s the Difference?

This post was contributed by Ricardo Roman, VP of Strategic Alliances and Caliper Sports, Caliper. For more information about the National Buying Program with Caliper, visit www.printing.org/caliper.

Managers and leaders share many similar qualities, but the performance of a manager carries far fewer risks than the performance of a leader. In addition, there seems to be a difference in the underlying motivational characteristics of these two groups.

In a recent Caliper study, more than 300 presidents and chief executive officers told us what they considered to be the most important—and the most difficult aspects—of being a leader. Among the choices we asked them to rank were:

• Creating the right vision
• Getting people to embrace that vision
• Maintaining momentum (motivating, influencing, and persuading others)
• Managing change (strategic planning, problem solving)
• Surrounding oneself with the right people
• Developing staff (coaching, managing performance, transforming teams)
• Delegating authority

Surrounding oneself with the right people was selected 41% of the time, second only to creating the right vision, as one of the most critical parts of leadership. Surrounding oneself with the right people was also selected as one of the three most difficult aspects of being an effective leader, just behind maintaining momentum and developing staff.

These chief executives said there are three main factors that keep most managers from becoming leaders: not understanding others well enough, not solving problems quickly enough, and not taking necessary risks.

We also asked the perennial question, is leadership predominantly something you are born with or that you develop through experience?

These same chief executives told us they felt they were born with 40 percent of their leadership ability and developed the remaining 60 percent through experience. 

What are the personality qualities that account for this 40 percent of innate leadership ability?