Why Being a Manager is NOT Enough?

Photo: Hung Nguyen

Leadership is an evolving process. It continuously creates and steers organizational culture, ideally for the better.

For many, leaders are synonymous with managers or to those whom they report to. Mr. V. Nayar of Harvard Business Review created the criteria of differentiation between a manager and a leader.

According to Nayar, the difference starts with COUNTING VS CREATING VALUE. Managers count value. They mainly rely on analytics, reports and other means of measurement to review their staff’s performance. More so, managers tend to ask for frequent reports which can actually adversely affect productivity of staffs, most especially the efficient ones. On the contrary, Nayar believes that leaders help create value together with their staffs. They lead by example and effectively delegate tasks; enabling each members of the team to carefully create their own path to excellence.

POWER VS INFLUENCE is another factor that differentiates a manager from a leader according to Nayar. “Managers” strive to establish power over their staffs and peers. They tend to uphold a top-down approach when it comes to task delegation. Leaders, on the contrary, attract followers. They sustain a two-way flow of information and responsibility; their inputs are valued across peers in and out of their teams; and most importantly, they contribute in steering the overall organization through example and influence.

 Vietnamworks.com, the nation’s leading online recruitment company conducted a quick social media check to their facebook fans mainly comprised of professionals in Vietnam. Here are some interesting responses generated:

Thu Le shared her opinion “Manager delegates the tasks and Leader inspires staff to work.

If the Leader says “Let’s make it together…”, Manager tends to delegate the tasks by saying “You have to do it.” Therefore, a Leader puts himself in the team to work together and a Manager separates himself from the team to supervise and manage. – shared from Don Vinton.

Tracy Xi Xon said “A manager instructs his staffs to work on requirements set by the company while a leader helps them define what exactly to do and achieve the goal set by the company.”

These responses reflect Nayar’s notion of what separates a “leader” from a “manager.” In the real world, “manager” is a more frequently used title for many. But beyond the title, a “manager” should have what it takes to be a “leader.” Besides, a leader is an ideal model for most of young professionals to MOVE UP in their career and a better catalyst of organizational culture.

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About VietnamWorks

VietnamWorks is the leading and largest online recruitment provider in Vietnam with more than 80,000 people visiting our website vietnamworks.com every day. VietnamWorks has more than 4,000 new jobs every month from the biggest companies in Vietnam, and the finest resources for career advancement to help jobseekers get their dream jobs. For employers, VietnamWorks provides online recruitment solutions and a searchable database containing over 500,000 fresh CVs to help them get the right talent to grow their businesses.