Is leadership good and management bad? Of course not, both are important. But there is a difference, and we explain their roles in project management.

Our topic is surprisingly controversial. There are many who stand on one side or the other of the great divide between leadership and management, demonizing one and praising the other.

You don’t have to look far to find examples of either persuasive leaders who have done terrible things or efficient managers who lack the soft skills to lead and inspire. That’s why we want to focus on what the differences between the two are and why a combination of both is ideal.

Leadership

What is leadership? It’s the action of leading a group towards a common goal. People who lead have three common attributes:

1. They inspire others to share their vision.
2. They motivate others to act on that vision.
3. They encourage others and help them overcome obstacles in pursuit of that vision.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower said, “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.”

10 Leadership Skills

Here is a list of the skills that make up great leadership. We know that there are more, but these are some of the core values of a strong leader:

1. Communication: The ability to disseminate information and listen actively.
2. Motivation: Getting people to want to do what you need them to do.
3. Delegation: Knowing that you can’t do everything and trusting others to help you carry the load by completing assigned tasks.
4. Positivity: Keeping a positive attitude, regardless of the situation, helps with morale.
5. Trustworthiness: People aren’t going to listen to you or do what you ask if you don’t first instill a sense of trust.
6. Creativity: There will always be problems that can’t be solved by rote; you must think creatively and be open to taking chances. Employ divergent thinking to find unique solutions.
7. Feedback: Leadership doesn’t take place in a vacuum. Listen to your team, stakeholders, advisors, mentors, etc., and take their opinions seriously.
8. Responsibility: You can’t expect people to follow you if you’re not taking responsibility for the bigger picture and your behavior.
9. Commitment: You also cannot expect to lead others if you are not committed to the project.
10. Flexibility: Things change, and rigidity can ruin a project, so you must be willing to adapt and not hold too tightly to anything.

Three Quintessential Leaders

Sometimes the best way to understand is to follow an example. What example could be more inspiring than these three great leaders?

• Mahatma Gandhi was the leader of the Indian independence movement, using nonviolent civil disobedience to remove the yolk of British colonialism from his country. India is a large and diverse country, with many competing religions seeking power, yet he was able to rally the nation under one cause that made them blind to their differences and focused on what they all shared in common.
• Martin Luther King, Jr. took the lessons of Gandhi and applied them to address the injustice of the black population in the United States. He, like Gandhi, had many challenges, and not all involved in the civil rights movement shared his belief in nonviolence. However, as a Southern minister, he was able to use the social gospel to illustrate the second-class citizenry of black people in the United States in such a way that eventually couldn’t be ignored—even in the powerful halls of government.
• Maria Theresa might not be a household name like the two other leaders on our list, but she earned her seat when she inherited rule of her country, Austria, in 1740. At that time, Austria was without funds and poorly governed. She gathered a team of skilled advisors and delegated responsibilities, turning around the economy, revitalizing the military and instituting mandatory public education for both boys and girls. Not even two wars could dethrone her, nor giving birth to 16 children!

Management

What is management? It’s the process of dealing with or controlling things or people. But the emphasis does tend to be on things rather than people.

Managers are people who plan, organize and coordinate. They are methodical and are always reassessing their process to make sure they’re progressing as planned. If not, they tweak to get back to their baseline assessment.

Management consultant, educator and author Peter F. Druker, who said, “What’s measured gets improved.” So, you can see a difference in that managers approach things more systematically, seeking metrics and tools to measure their progress and adapt their process accordingly.

Top 10 Management Skills

To further highlight the differences and the complementary nature of leadership and management, we list 10 of what are considered the most important skills for any manager to have.

Related: How to Be a Good Manager

1. Interpersonal Skills: While managers aren’t exclusively dealing with people, they still must interface with them, and the better they do so, the smoother the management process.
2. Communications: Being able to manage is being able to communicate what you need to who needs to do it.
3. Motivation: The same is true for motivating people to follow your management lead.
4. Organization: You must be organized. Management is made up of many parts, and they cannot be handled on the fly.
5. Delegation: No one can manage everything themselves, and if they try, they’re going to fail. So, share responsibilities and tasks with others.
6. Forward Planning: A manager is a planner who looks towards the future and how to set themselves up for it today.
7. Strategic Thinking: Part of that planning is thinking strategically about the project, the organization and how to align them moving forward.
8. Problem Solving: Managers face issues daily, and they must think creatively to solve them.
9. Commercial Awareness: Managers are not working in a vacuum and need to have a keen sense of the business and commercial environment in which they operate.
10. Mentoring: In order to get things done, sometimes a manager must become a mentor, offering guidance or training where it’s needed.

Three Quintessential Managers

Just as there are great leaders, there are great managers. In fact, often the successful managers are more heralded than political leaders, as if their successes were somehow more relevant. They’re not, of course, but they deserve their due. Here are three of the best.

• Henry Ford was the man we can thank for launching car culture, a dubious distinction but one to note. As a manager, however, his influence might even be more widespread. His approach to production was every bit as revolutionary as his approach to locomotion. He managed to increase efficiencies and lower the cost of materials and the final product.
• Madam C.J. Walker was an African-American woman who in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries developed and sold hair products targeting the neglected needs of an underserved demographic, Africian-American woman, like herself. That she was a gifted manager, who saw a niche and knew how to exploit it, wasn’t enough. She also had to manage a deeply racist culture.
• Walt Disney has become a towering figure in global entertainment, but he started as a cartoonist. There are just so many comic strips you can draw, though, and he was able to tap the talent he recognized and manage it to work as a team, creating some of the most iconic characters the world has ever seen.

The Take-away

You probably have noticed that many of the skills for leadership and management are the same. Not all of them, but enough to build a Venn diagram where the best leaders and managers meet in the middle.

No matter your thoughts on either a leader or a manager it can be argued that almost every organization needs both. Not every leader is a manager and not every manager can lead; but there are skill-sets of both that are detrimental for an organization to be successful.

Pro-Tip: Every leader and manager worth their salt knows that they can always work towards improving their skills. There are many leadership and management programs online and at schools, and there’s likely at least one to suit your needs and your schedule.

Take it Further: Whether you’re a leader or a manger, you’re always going to want to push your company and your team to grow. Learn how transformational leadership can do just that.

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