From Tony Morgan Live
In their book First, Break All the Rules, Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman defined both roles like this:
Managers - “Great managers look inward. They look inside the company, into each individual, into the differences in style, goals, needs, and motivation of each person. These differences are small, subtle, but great managers need to pay attention to them. These subtle differences guide them toward the right way to release each person’s unique talents into performance.”
Leaders - “Great leaders look outward. They look out at the competition, out at the future, out at alternative routes forward. They focus on broad patterns, finding connections, cracks, and then press home their advantage where the resistance is weakest. They must be visionaries, strategic thinkers, activators. When played well, this is, without doubt, a critical role. But it doesn’t have much to do with the challenge of turning one individual’s talents into performance.”
That’s how Buckingham and Coffman described the two roles in marketplace organizations, but the Bible also distinguishes these two rules. The spiritual gift of leadership found in Romans 12:8 is very different from the spiritual gift of management (or administration) found in I Corinthians 12:28. Few people have both of these gifts, but both are needed within a healthy church body.
The point here isn’t to value one of these gifts over the other. (That would be a fruitless exercise because both are needed for a church or any organization to function properly.) However, I think it’s essential to identify how we are gifted and to also consider those we are responsible for in our ministry roles. If we are trying to be a manager when we’re actually a leader, we will be unfulfilled and face ministry burnout like Wayne described. Likewise, if we’re forced into a leadership role when we’re actually a manager, we will face the same challenges.
