Leadership: Top, Middle and Bottom

Leadership is one topic that’s talked about a lot in the boardrooms. But that doesn’t limit its scope to the top management of an organization. No doubt leadership matters a lot at the top. But it must be established in the same breath that leadership is something that must be practiced at all levels in an organization.

We come across a host of managers at different rungs of the ladder in an organization. But what about leaders? To answer this question we must first understand the difference between a manager and a leader. The difference lies in the source of authority that a person have over others. In case of a manager this source of authority is his power over his subordinates. And this power is vested upon him or rather his designation. And by the virtue of this power he extends a control over the people who report to him.  So the keywords here are ‘power’ and ‘control’. However in the case of a leader the source of authority is his inspiring character. It’s not something that is due to his position or the designation in a particular organization. It has its roots in his character, the way he communicates to people around him be it his peers or his subordinates, the way he handles situations and various other ways in which he disposes off his duties and responsibilities. This inspiring persona helps him extend a degree of influence over others. So the keywords that we get here are ‘inspire’ and ‘influence’. Something worth noticing here is that since the inspiring persona doesn’t owe its source to the position held, the influence that a leader has over others is not limited only to people reporting to him. His circle of influence is different and larger than the circle of power that a manager can draw.

Having understood the difference between a manager and a leader, our next focus is to transform the managers of our organizations into leaders. We shall talk about this transformation in the next article.