What Leaders Really Do

By John Kotter

The article discusses the importance of balance between leadership and management in an
organization. Both have to exist for the organization to thrive in this competitive environment.
Management functions are to plan, organize, execute and report in a systematic way. It takes a
defined company direction and formulates the system necessary to achieve goals step by step.
Leadership on the other hand is the brain; it is the action or process of acquiring knowledge and
understanding through though and experience. It deals with the aspect of business. It structures
an idea by thinking, asking questions and articulates its findings to management. Management is
the body; it gets instructions to act from leadership. From there it constructs and implements the
plan to make the body move, to turn the vision into reality, yet leadership does not stop at the
brain and management does not start at the body. To be successful each partially inhabits the
domain of the other.
The article states that most that most corporations are overmanaged and underled. This
statement means that organizations do not let managers and leaders work side by side. As a result
the responsibility of handling tasks and aliening people is given to the managers. Kotter not only
focuses on the equality of importance of both leadership and management but also that one
cannot perform well without the other for contribution to change, that is one of the most
important aspects of todays business environment. Managers can handle organizational duties
but leading the people of the organization to perform those duties is the task of a leader. For that
more than one person can perform leadership role n though that change can be more readily
accepted and also applied.
A persons originality is a great competitive advantage in any organization. But the lack of selfsatisfaction and acceptance of the new ideas in the culture of the organization can be the reason
of stopping the organization to develop change. To overcome these barriers a company should try
to overcome the gap between the employees and try to build connectivity among them. The
employee should know that what they are doing with their time, talent and expertise is for
something more than just a salary pay check. When an employee feels that his/her contribution is
truly valued and organization ensures his/her safety if things dont work out as planned, it creates
ownership of their achievements and strengthen their commitment to the mission of their team
and organization.