I have been reading a lot of books by Seth Godin lately. In his recent book Tribes, Godin calls on people to step up as leaders to lead tribes. A tribe is a group of people who are connected to one another, a leader and an idea. Over the last decade, the advancement of the Internet and social media groups has only given rise to more tribes. These groups are in need of leaders.In my business law practice I assist several Indiana technology companies in their strategic growth. I have noticed that leadership is often confused with management. Businesses need both, but the two roles should not be confused as being the same. Here is an excerpt from Tribes:
Leadership is Not Management
In a classic I Love Lucy episode, Lucy and Ethel are working on a candy assembly line. As the candies come faster and faster, the two of them panic, stuffing truffles into their mouths to keep up with the onslaught.
They had a management problem.
Management is about manipulating resources to get a known job done. Burger King franchises hire managers. They know exactly what they need to deliver and they are given resources to do it at low cost. Managers manage a process they've seen before, and they react to the outside world, striving to make that process as fast and as cheap as possible.
Leadership, on the other hand, is about creating change that you believe in.
My thesaurus says that the best synonym for leadership is management. Maybe that word used to fit, but no longer. Movements have leaders and movements make things happen.
Leaders have followers. Managers have employees.
Managers make widgets. Leaders make change.
Change? Change is frightening, and too many people would be leaders, it seems more of a threat than a promise. That's too bad, because the future belongs to our leaders, regardless of where they work or what they do.
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