When it comes to executing your roles in your family, and in that responsibility for which you are economically compensated, are you a leader or a manager? Oh, I know some reading this post will say “I’m neither, I just……” but wait, in that case you are at least a manager; responsible for managing that particular responsibility which you’ve been assigned. So if you are willing to accept at least the “manager” designation, then I want to engage in thought with you about Leadership vs. Management. Perhaps in the mental conversation you’ll find a way to make a bigger difference in the world.

This matter arose in my company because of a management issue. I have colleagues who the world would call “managers” but I find myself talking to them about being better “leaders.” What’s the difference and why does it matter? Good question!

My mentor Lee Brower called my attention to the fact that we have way too much management in this world, and not nearly enough leadership. This is true from Wall Street to your street. Think about it: The large financial companies were gaming the system in the early 2000’s and proverbially “got caught with their pants down” causing legendary firms with centuries of history to vanish over night in 2008. The response was “We need more regulation.” That’s “management speak” and it’s wrong.

What we needed then and now is leadership which says “that’s wrong, danger ahead, you can’t cheat the system and keep inflating the numbers into perpetuity. There will be a pay day, some day.” Leadership speaks to the WHY behind those kind of decisions while management just seeks control. But control ultimately never works. In the 30’s the government tried to control liquor. All that did was make the bootleggers like Joe Kennedy and Al Capone rich. Today, we’ve got drug laws that seek to control use of illicit substances. How’s that working in your community? It won’t work on Wall Street either. Bernie Madoff’s ponzi scheme has already resulted in a great host of additional government “management” through financial regulations seeking to “control” unethical financial behavior. What’s needed instead is leadership born of personal morality that says “No. You can’t do it. We won’t allow it. And you should be ashamed of yourself for trying to do it. We shun you!” all the while teaching people about the financial, emotional, moral, social, and spiritual costs of such thievery. Really, we need stronger teaching, not stronger legislating. There are absolutes, and those of us who know that need to stand by them.

Lest you think this is just an issue on Wall Street, let’s look at your street. Lee has mentioned how leadership vs. management plays out at your kids school, or in their Little League, or Mighty Mights or whatever they are involved in. Have you heard about these places where the children’s athletic teams don’t keep score because “we wouldn’t want little Johnny to feel badly because his team lost”? Or how about the schools that don’t give grades because they wouldn’t want the low achievers to feel badly because they flunked. What kind of stupid thinking is that? Do you think that when these kids grow up they are going to get a passing grade in life and business just for showing up, without contributing…..”doing their homework” so to speak? Is no one going to keep score in life? Is their employer going to give everyone the same promotion and the same raise, or are there going to be winners and losers? Those who advance, and those who are held back? Those who succeed and those who fail? Ask the guy I terminated yesterday. He’s a prince of a fellow. I like him alot! But he wasn’t getting the job done. He wasn’t passing the class, and ultimately he got kicked out of school. He lost his job. To have kept him on the team risked the economic health of the entire company and ultimately the jobs of every person on the team. Management might have protected his job and thus his emotions, but leadership ultimately protected the jobs of 50 others.

I’m all for cushioning someone’s pain the best we can. Medicine calls it “palliative care” But I’m also for letting people learn by experiencing the hard realities that are life. You will lose, sometimes. You will get hurt. You will experience pain. You will someday die! This is life. Good leadership doesn’t try to “manage” away the pain, instead it equips people to overcome the negatives they face.

Are you leading your family, or managing them? What about your department? Your peers?

When it comes to the vision you are pursuing at home or professionally, are you throwing wood or water on the flame, or are you the keeper of the flame? One is management, the other is leadership.

Here’s another difference between management and leadership: Management focuses on short-term results—what will get the best response “tomorrow?” Leadership focuses on long-term results—what will ultimately make us the strongest as a family or a company over the long haul?

Which is best, short term management, or long term leadership? It depends on what you want. Pine trees grow rapidly. They are a “soft” open-grained wood and don’t have tremendous strength. Oak trees grow slowly. They produce a “hard” tightly grained wood with the greatest strength. So what do you want? A soft child that is emotionally weak? Then manage his environment so that he is protected from every unpleasantness. But if you want a strong family that endures and thrives amid the hardship of life you lead them in how they are to think, how they are to approach and experience life’s difficulties, and you produce a child that will have deep roots through which to draw water during the harsh droughts of adulthood.

In my company I want leaders. People come to us for our leadership. We even having a saying “We help people who have problems, not those who are problems.” That’s true. People come to us when their financial, investment, real estate and business life aren’t working, and we help them sort through their options and develop a strategy to move their life forward.

I want each member of my team—everyone I touch, really—to step up their leadership; to seek to influence for better, the situations in which they are involved and the people they are around. I don’t want people who know how to check boxes, though that is required. I want people who understand intuitively WHY we are checking the boxes. It’s NOT so we’ll have “checked boxes” at the end of the day. It’s because if we have checked all those boxes we’ll have followed a protocol designed to give the highest probability of a positive result for the people who are depending on us.

You see, it really is about WHY vs. WHAT. People who ask WHAT always work for people who KNOW WHY. WHY people set the temperature in the room. WHAT people monitor the temperature in the room.

If the WHY is big enough, the WHAT will always become evident, at least for bright people.

You are bright. You wouldn’t have been able to read this far in this lengthy epistle if you weren’t. You are bright enough to be a WHY guy (or gal). You can be a leader. You can be a difference maker in your family, your church, your community, and your workplace. It starts when you move through and beyond your management responsibilities to take up the mantle of leadership for all the people who are depending on you.