# The Difference Between Leadership and Management By:: [[Brian Heath]] 2023-11-16 Much is written about how to be a good leader and manager. Sometimes, people conflate these two, but they are different. Managers manage things from a position of power, and leaders inspire the collective action of people. Power may come with leadership, but only through the work. Conversely, a manager's power is given to them instantaneously via the organization. Leadership power is earned and easy to lose, while manager power is given and absolute. Earned power is very different from inherited power. So, when one reads about how to be a good leader and manager, one should consider which power perspective is being provided. Most texts and training courses focus on inherited power techniques akin to management. It focuses on rules, structure, and processes to properly exert control with one's new power. Leadership texts concentrate much more on storytelling via autobiographies and case studies of individuals. Occasionally, the authors will attempt to categorize methodologies one uses to earn leadership power, but often, these lack logical coherence. This is due to the chaotic nature of reality and the progressive nature of time. Usually, the situation around what causes people to become leaders cannot be repeated. One cannot rewind the clock and try something else or measure all the variables without impacting the experiment. So, authors and researchers look for general trends and correlations that seem to repeat themselves until they become cultural myths. So, why doesn't management text suffer from the same fate as it exists within the same universal constraints? Because managers already have the inherited and absolute power to say what is good and bad management. They can write and propagate whatever they like on the subject. Leaders do not have the power to declare themselves and their practices good; only their followers can do this, and it is often a precarious situation with many different opinions. With leadership, there is only a constantly evolving collective truth observable via collective actions, not a doctrine of values. Furthermore, a leader's earned power cannot be passed down to others, so whatever is good about them at that moment is nontransferable. So, management creates a positive feedback loop that spirals out of control without checks and balances. Meanwhile, leadership unpredictably emerges at the edge of order and chaos in the name of solidarity and progress. #### Related Items [[Management]] [[Leadership]] [[Chaos]] [[Order]] [[Solidarity]] [[Power]] [[Understanding]] [[Self-Improvement]]