Leaders see what needs to be done and Managers see how it should be done.The important thing that needs to be understood is that Leadership is all about implementing change and Management is about controlling change.

Too much Management can and does prevent change. I call this “Enterprise Paralysis” ™. The usual symptom for this is a “Process” that does not tie to a “Principal”. This is Process for Processes sake. Usually triggered when something goes wrong – “lets get a new process…..”.

Good Leaders usually have strong unwavering Principals. Where an organisation has poor leadership, it usually has poor principals, therefore vision is not focused. Things start going wrong and new processes are created to control. More detail is usually added into existing processes. The Organisation forgot why it does things and starts focusing on how things are done. I call this “Enterprise Amnesia” ™ – but many would know this as “Red Tape”. So then you end up with a work force “just following the process”. Perhaps the best indicator of missing leadership is an environment that has people not knowing why a process exists, yet blindly following it. In fact, they even blindly defend it.

Do you know of any Organisations like this? The more Red Tape that exists, the less Leadership that exists. Change is therefore prevented.