The Management to Leadership Continuum

One question comes up in every workshop I've done around management or leadership.
Is there a difference between management and leadership?
And if so, what is the difference?

I created a quick exercise I do at the start of each management/leadership  workshop I lead, or any time the question comes up in a group setting. Here are the steps:

1. Draw a continuum from Management to Leadership across the top of a big whiteboard.
2. Label the left side with the words ' job', 'tasks', 'characteristics', 'attributes', 'objectives'.
3. Give all the participants Post-it Notes - about 5-7 per person is good.
4. Ask them to list the tasks, attributes, and objectives of managers and leaders on the Post-it Notes. One idea per note. Give them 5 minutes or so. When the energy in the room dissipates, move to the next step.
5. Ask the participants to place their Post-its on the continuum. If a task or attribute is purely management (in their view) put it to the left. Purely leadership goes to the right. If it's in-between, place it in-between. No right or wrong here.
6. Bring the whole group to the board and look at the words. Allow 5-10 minutes for discussion. Why did some tasks get put at different spots across the continuum? Share perspectives. Any Post-its we don't understand? Clarify. What trends do we see? Is anything missing?
7. This discussion is usually rich. Allow it time to develop.
8. I now ask the participants to think about where they need to be, in their current role, on this continuum. I start at the left side and put my marker on the board (the red marker in the picture above). I ask the participants to raise their hands when i reach the point that they need to be. As I walk across the board, I draw the profile of the team.
9. Then I ask them where there are today and walk across the board. Sometimes I draw the profile in another color. In this case, the participants agreed on the point where the red vertical line appears.
10. Discuss the gap.

The picture above was taken at a 2-day management workshop I led in Yokohama, Japan in May.

Words like 'planning', 'scheduling', and 'time-management' show up to the left.
'Attracting talent' and 'mentoring' show up at the half-way point.
'Innovation', 'vision', and 'modeling' are to the right.

You can see from the red profile curve that this group of front-line and middle managers believes they need to be demonstrating the skills and characteristics that are between 25% and 75% on the continuum.
The red vertical line shows that they are currently at the 25% point.

A few observations:

• As a facilitator, this exercise shows me how to calibrate the material for each audience. I know where they need me to focus and I can tie the subsequent topics back to this visual.
• This curve changes by country, department, culture - even by time of year or business cycle.
• A few years ago, most Japanese managers - even higher level ones - would have said that they needed to demonstrate manager skills and attributes. The history of Japanese business has been to follow process. That's changing. Managers are now expected to act more as 'leaders'. They have to (and want to) close the gap.

For broader audiences, you can extend this continuum to include Individual Contributor, Lead, and Supervisor and look at how skills and attributes change over a career.