In recent years, companies and employees demand leaders rather than managers, but do we know how to identify the differences between leading and managing? Should we replace one for the other?

John P. Kotter, professor at the Harvard Business School, leader in business thinking, leadership and change, defines that “Management deals with facing complexity. Leadership, by contrast, is about coping with change. The real challenge is combining both, which, although different, are complementary”.

Lucia Langa, director of the Master in High-Performance Leadership at EADA Business School in Barcelona, ​​a colleague, and mentor, affirms that “leadership is difficult to define because it is the conjunction of many elements.”

Lucia affirms something revealing, and that is that “the right leader does not speak of leadership, he exercises it naturally. On the other hand, who is not a leader usually uses that meaning to talk about himself, even presuming to be so”.

Managing is a set of daily activities related to administration, organization, planning, control, ultimately, solution, and decision-making.

On the other hand, leadership involves more committed activities, such as defining the purpose, communicating it, engaging others, encouraging them, being an example to follow. It is, in short, creating an atmosphere of shared work.

Following the previous definitions, we can establish that the main differences between leadership and management are, respectively, the following:

• Setting an orientation vs. planning and budgeting

• Aligning people vs. organizing and staffing

• Motivate people vs. control and solve problems

Thus, we can establish that leadership is people-oriented, while management is task-oriented.

On the other hand, management and leadership are not excluding skills, so it would be incorrect to think that it is better to dominate one more than the other. Strong leadership with weak management is no better, and sometimes even worse.

The key is to ensure skills complement each other, and the challenge is that they do it in a balanced way.

The functional integration of both systems allows success in an increasingly complex and volatile environment.

From the hotel factory, we work with our clients in developing leadership in their organizations, through training and coaching. We genuinely believe that every business project must consolidate a leadership culture to become a successful project.

We work dynamics and team coaching because we truly believe that good leadership is what transforms a group into a team.