Founders and
otherwise visionary leaders in business can be distinguished from managers,
even though a manager may be running a company. For one thing, managers may
resent leaders for being able to take in a larger view while relegating—even
dismissing the petty, which can be so alluring to the managerial mentality.
Leaders in turn may view the implementation of a vision as nugatory at best.
More abstractly, change as paradigmatic (i.e., shifting from one broad
framework to another) has its fans (i.e., visionary leaders), while the status
quo has its own defenders (i.e., managers). Vision and big ideas are typically
associated with a company’s founder or visionary leader, whereas bureaucracy
tends to go with the implementation-focus of managers (including executives).
In short, to suppose that leadership and management are the same is to ignore a
lot that separates them. In the case of Apple, the shift from leadership to
management that occurred with the passing of Steve Jobs may be at least
partially responsible for the subsequent decline in the company’s stock price.
In this essay, I explore the change at Apple to demonstrate why management
should not be conflated with leadership.
Material from this essay has been incorporated into The Essence of Leadership, which is available at Amazon in print and as an ebook.
