I spent the day with a group of physician leaders. Among the topics of Ebola, EMR, physician code of conduct, we also touched on the very different jobs that physician leaders hold. This ended up with an in-depth discuss on the differences between management and leadership. This topic is very near and dear to me and I think a firm understanding of it is critical for those who work with physicians leaders.
To begin, let me be clear – the words are often used interchangeably and the word leadership often also means leadership activities. However, I think a deep understanding of the differences can help avoid many problems when physician may be put into the wrong positions.
Dr. Jacque Sokolov and I wrote in Developing Physician Leaders for Successful Clinical Integration (Health Administration Press, 2013):
Management and leadership are different. This bears repeating—there is a difference between management and leadership. Yet most books and articles either (a) use the words interchangeably (as even we have done in some places in this book) or (b) portray management as bad and leadership as good. In this chapter, we strive to use the terms separately and distinctly. Moreover, we believe that both are positive.
Management is a core activity of running an organization. Management is a function and activity whereby individuals plan and organize work, projects, and operations. They use budgets, controls, and metrics and direct the work of others in achieving this work. Management is focused mostly on the immediate.
Leadership is future oriented. Leadership, on the other hand, is more abstract and focuses more on the future. The functions and activities of leadership pertain to developing needed change to meet the future. In his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey (1990) says, “Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.”
Kotter (1996) states, “Management is a set of processes that can keep a complicated system of people and technology running smoothly. The most important aspects of management include planning, budgeting, organizing, staffing, controlling, and problem solving. Leadership is a set of processes that creates organizations in the first place or adapts them to significantly changing circumstances. Leadership defines what the future should look like, aligns people with that vision, and inspires them to make it happen despite the obstacles.”
Before putting a physician into a management positions when he or she has strong leadership proclivities – or the opposite – consider these differences. Interestingly, our group concluded that the work involving Ebola involves both leadership and management.