Frequent readers know that I am not a devotee of Warren Bennis, who famously propagated the idea that leaders and managers are not only different, but that ‘leaders’ are higher on the food chain possessing far more value than the lowly manager.
I have devoted numerous posts to dispelling this attitude (See series starting here.), much like Don Quixote tilting at his windmills. (It’s not a new attitude; I’ve had a statue of Quixote and Sancho Panza for years:)
I was discussing this over lunch with several executives and voiced my thought that no manager at any level can function successfully in …read more

Post from Leadership Turn Image credit: sekimura
By Wes Ball, author of ­ The Alpha Factor – a revolutionary new look at what really creates market dominance and self-sustaining success. Read all of Wes’ posts here.
Most employees of larger corporations would agree that the majority of the persons they see being moved upward are not leaders.
In many cases, they aren’t even very good managers. They just happen to be willing to stay around and put up with more #*&@ than other people around them.
Is that too harsh? I speak not just from all the research I did into …read more

Post from Leadership Turn Image credit: lusi
As mentioned, today starts a seven part series discussing Warren Bennis’ 13 differences between leaders and managers in light of today’s modern workforce. The series will address two items each day and runs through May 9 (except for Sunday and Wednesday, they have their own agendas).
To give us common ground, I’m using these descriptions of leadership as the basis of my comments, but feel free to disagree. Unfortunately, I haven’t found comparable descriptions of managers—if you know of any please share them—so my thoughts are based on the best managers I’ve read about …read more