Leader vs Manager

This topic came up in a recent conversation. We spoke about leaders and managers within the organisation. It's easy to find leaders in an organisation, but its' difficult to find a good manager. It's not easy to distinguish the two, as they have overlapping characteristic - a leader should manage and a manage should lead.

For example, a football team manager leads the team to seek glory and championship while the team captain focus on leading and fight together with the players to defeat the opponent in the game.

And back in ancient times, long long time ago, during the Three Kingdoms era in China, there was this guy call Liu Bei (刘备) who was able to lead his sworn brothers and inspire his army to fight for him in battles. He has ambition to reinstate the Han rule but he lacks the strategic mind. He found a man call Zhuge Liang (诸葛亮) and through his sincerity, he manage to convince Zhuge Liang to become his military advisor and help him manage his army. Even after he died, Zhuge Liang still faithfully assist his son and manage his country as the Premier.

Coming back to the present world, in work, once in a while, you might find yourself leading the team to achieve certain objectives. You might have being 'arrowed' by your manager to do it. Regardless, its still some kind of leadership role. You will know if you have the power to lead on such ocassion.

Speaking of power, in a recent book I read, The Servant, the writer James C. Hunter talks about power vs authority. A manager may have the authority to instruct his or her subordinate to perform a task. But were they compel to do it by virtue of the manager's 'rank', or was part of the willingness due to respect for their leader?

Having said all these, are you ready to lead?