Uploaded April 2017 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
It seems like leadership gets all of the press, and management takes a back seat. Is that right?
Transcript:
Hi there, everybody. Cameron Morrissey here. For those that have been tuning in for a while, you know I hate those kind of academic questions of whether leaders are born or made or that sort of thing. But sometimes one comes up that kind of intrigues me just a little bit. It popped up in one of my live sessions. It was that everybody seems to talk about leaders versus managers, and really with the impression that leadership is more important. Hey, this used to be called the Manager's Diary, and I used to get emails all the time saying, "Shouldn't it be the Leader's Diary as opposed to the Manager's Diary?" I wanted to address which one is more important, but before I do, I wanted to just lay out the framework on this and basically say that neither. Before I answer and force myself to make a decision between these two, I'm going to go ahead and make the argument that neither one of them is more important than the other. Leadership sets the tone and direction; management supports and executes. The right strategy from a leader is great, but if you don't have the ability to execute it, it's useless. Likewise, executing a plan is relatively useless if you're going in the wrong direction. The two are intricately put together and I don't really want to put one ahead of another. That being said, if you put me on the spot, leadership is more important than management. The reason is at least if you have the right strategy without the ability to execute, you head down the road a little bit more. You're at least learning in the right direction. There's more benefit from failure of management as opposed to a failure of leadership. While I think leadership is more important than management, really it isn't everything, and you need to focus on both of those particular areas. Thanks so much, everybody. Bye bye.
It seems like leadership gets all of the press, and management takes a back seat. Is that right?
Transcript:
Hi there, everybody. Cameron Morrissey here. For those that have been tuning in for a while, you know I hate those kind of academic questions of whether leaders are born or made or that sort of thing. But sometimes one comes up that kind of intrigues me just a little bit. It popped up in one of my live sessions. It was that everybody seems to talk about leaders versus managers, and really with the impression that leadership is more important. Hey, this used to be called the Manager's Diary, and I used to get emails all the time saying, "Shouldn't it be the Leader's Diary as opposed to the Manager's Diary?" I wanted to address which one is more important, but before I do, I wanted to just lay out the framework on this and basically say that neither. Before I answer and force myself to make a decision between these two, I'm going to go ahead and make the argument that neither one of them is more important than the other. Leadership sets the tone and direction; management supports and executes. The right strategy from a leader is great, but if you don't have the ability to execute it, it's useless. Likewise, executing a plan is relatively useless if you're going in the wrong direction. The two are intricately put together and I don't really want to put one ahead of another. That being said, if you put me on the spot, leadership is more important than management. The reason is at least if you have the right strategy without the ability to execute, you head down the road a little bit more. You're at least learning in the right direction. There's more benefit from failure of management as opposed to a failure of leadership. While I think leadership is more important than management, really it isn't everything, and you need to focus on both of those particular areas. Thanks so much, everybody. Bye bye.
