Some leaders believe that leadership and management are two different things and they are only responsible for one of them. In “True Leaders Are Also Managers” (HBR, August 11, 2010), Robert I. Sutton uses the words of Warren Bennis to describe a common perception: “To manage means to bring about, to accomplish, to have charge of or responsibility for, to conduct. Leading is influencing, guiding in a direction, course, action, opinion. The distinction is crucial.”

Sutton disagrees, arguing that such a distinction produces leaders with big, vague ideas that can have little to do with reality or can be nearly impossible to implement. It isolates leaders from reality, giving them a reason “to avoid the hard work of learning about the people that they lead, the technologies their companies use, and the customers they serve.”

The Baldrige Criteria does not make this distinction. The first Category in the Criteria asks a number of questions about how senior leaders lead and manage:

• How do senior leaders set organizational vision and values? (Lead)
• How do senior leaders personally promote an organizational environment that fosters, requires, and results in legal and ethical behavior? (Lead)
• How do senior leaders create a sustainable organization? (Lead)
• How do senior leaders create an environment for organizational performance improvement, innovation, and agility? (Lead)
• How do senior leaders communicate with and engage the entire workforce? (Manage)
• How do senior leaders encourage frank, two-way communication throughout the organization? (Manage)
• How do they take an active role in reward and recognition programs? (Manage)
• How do senior leaders focus on creating and balancing value for customers and other stakeholders? (Manage)

As you can see from this list, the distinction between leadership and management is blurred. Creating a sustainable organization is not just an exercise in strategic planning: It requires knowledge of customers, markets, employees, competitors, capabilities, and other factors that can only be acquired by being responsible for the processes that produce such knowledge. It requires management.

The most effective leaders are also effective managers, working with the people, technologies, and processes that will get their organizations where they need to go. They dream, but they also do, and the doing grounds them in the reality of the challenges and opportunities before them.

To read more about effective leadership, click on these articles:

• What Great Organizations Achieve
• Leadership Matters Most
• Seeking Authentic Leaders
• Undercover and Out of Touch
• Management’s Five Deadly Diseases
• A Leader’s Job

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