The label ‘leader’ isn’t something one can self-apply. It is a natural, organic process that cannot be forced or taught. True leadership comes with enlightenment, not through books or classes or corporate roles.

Management is not leadership

This is a very simple yet important concept that many folks with the title ‘manager’ don’t seem to grasp.

Consulting firms and companies in general seem to trumpet leadership as some kind of learned thing; a quality to strive for and ultimately achieve through management experience. The problem is management isn’t leadership, it’s management. Management means assigning and tracking tasks, identifying project issues, managing deadlines, communicating to the big guns, etc. etc.

Leaders do exactly that, lead. They invest themselves into a project, heart and soul. They involve themselves in as many aspects of a project as possible not because they have to, but because they want to. They take suggestions from everywhere, consider everything and embrace their colleagues new ideas. Leaders foster innovation in favor of ego for the greater good. Just like Superman.

Because of their sheer display of excellence and dynamic nature, leaders are admired. This is key.

Managers may not always admired for one reason or another. Perhaps a manager takes credit for something they shouldn’t have, or throws someone under the bus publicly. Perhaps they condescend or ignore a new idea. Maybe they’re checked out of the project entirely and just show up for staff meetings and status reports.

People who often want to be managers are simply power-hungry: They want people to admire and respect them, or at least pretend to. On the other hand, leaders don’t always want to manage. They get off on what they do in their current position and don’t want to shift into a boring management job. This is an often seen conundrum in organizations as the truly good are often led by those who could care less about the project at hand, moreso on fulfilling their own selfish wants.

I am always suspicious of the guy who comes running through the door with a sport coat on, giving directives to everyone in a project room but understanding nothing. This person wants to be a leader, so they try to imitate the qualities of leadership. Unfortunately, their methods are shallow and without meaning, because they don’t actually care about the project, just themselves.

Leaders avoid management

Great leaders often don’t want a management role. The reasons for this are multifold, but mostly it has to do with the fact that 1) they love what their doing already and 2) find management boring. Who wants to track task lists when you can innovate? The most common examples of leaders who avoid management is present in the IT field, where people invest themselves totally in their work for the sake of innovation.

I once tried to explain this concept to a new hire over lunch, a self-described, yet woefully inadequate, ‘leader’. He couldn’t grasp the fact that the truly good avoid management positions at all costs. He was not well liked on the project and would often belittle contractors under him publicly, proudly take credit for accomplishments that were not his, and otherwise encourage disdain from others around him. Of course, with no creative outlets other than scrambling for leadership-ish roles, this person would most certainly be on his way to becoming a manager.

Orson Scott Card may have explained it best when he wrote an essay called “How Software Companies Die”:

Here’s the problem that ends up killing company after company.  All
successful software companies had, as their dominant personality, a
leader who nurtured programmers.  But no company can keep such a leader
forever. Either he cashes out, or he brings in management types who end
up driving him out, or he changes and becomes a management type himself.
One way or another, marketers get control.  But…control of what?
Instead of finding assembly lines of productive workers, they quickly
discover that their product is produced by utterly unpredictable,
uncooperative, disobedient, and worst of all, unattractive people who
resist all attempts at management.  Put them on a time clock, dress
them in suits, and they become sullen and start sabotaging the product.
Worst of all, you can sense that they are making fun of you with every
word they say.

So how does one become a leader?

Simple, do what you love. Those who are truly happy with what they are doing will excel and help others excel.

Also, avoid sport coats.