2023年经济学人 经理和领导有何区别（在线收听）

Business

商业版块

Bartleby

巴托比专栏

Managers v leaders

经理vs领导

A distinction that is both valid and unhelpful.

有道理但无用处的区分。

If you were asked to imagine a manager, you might well conjure up someone comically boring, desk-bound and monotonal.

如果有人让你想象一位经理，你很可能会想到一个乏味得可笑、整天坐在办公桌前、单调沉闷的人。

Now do the same for a leader.

现在，再想象一位领导。

You may well be picturing someone delivering a rousing speech.

你脑海中出现的很可能是某人在发表一场振奋人心的演讲。

A horse may be involved.

可能还会想到一匹骏马。

You almost certainly have different types in mind.

对经理和领导的想象绝对是不同的。

There is indeed a distinction between managers and leaders, but it should not be overdone.

二者确实是有区别的，但不应过分强调这种区别。

Various attempts have been made to pin down the differences between the two, but they boil down to the same thing.

为了弄清经理和领导之间的区别，人们进行了各种尝试，但归根结底都是一回事。

Managers, according to an influential article by Abraham Zaleznik in the Harvard Business Review in 1977, value order; leaders are tolerant of chaos.

根据1977年亚伯拉罕·扎莱兹尼克在《哈佛商业评论》上发表的一篇有影响力的文章，经理重视秩序，领导能容忍混乱。

A later article in the same publication, by John Kotter, described management as a problem-solving discipline, in which planning and budgeting creates predictability.

约翰·科特后来在《哈佛商业评论》也发表了一篇文章，他将管理学描述为一种解决问题的学科，制定计划和预算带来了可预测性。

Leadership, in contrast, is about the embrace of change and inspiring people to brave the unknown.

相比之下，领导力则是拥抱变化，激励人们直面未知。

Warren Bennis, an American academic who made leadership studies respectable, reckoned that a manager administers and a leader innovates.

沃伦·班尼斯是一位美国学者，他使领导力研究变成一门受人尊重的学科，他认为经理负责管理，而领导进行创新。

Some of these definitions might be a tad arbitrary but they can be useful nonetheless.

其中一些定义可能有点武断，但仍然很有用处。

Too many firms promote employees into management roles because that is the only way for them to get on in their careers.

有太多的公司提拔员工担任经理职务，因为这是他们获得职业成功的唯一途径。

But some people are much more suited to the ethos of management.

但有些人的气质更适合管理岗位。

They are more focused on process; they like the idea of spreadsheets, orderliness and supporting others to do good work.

他们更专注于流程，他们喜欢电子表格、秩序和支持他人做好工作。

Shopify, an e-commerce firm, has created separate career paths for managers and developers with these differences in motivation in mind.

电子商务公司Shopify考虑到了这些不同的动机，并为经理和开发人员开辟了不同的职业发展道路。

The difference between managing and leading is not just a matter of semantics.

管理和领导之间的区别不仅仅是语义上的区别。

Research by Oriana Bandiera of the London School of Economics and her co-authors looked at the diaries of 1,114 CEOs in six countries, and categorised their behaviours into two types.

伦敦政治经济学院的奥莉安娜·班迪埃拉及其合著者研究了6个国家1114名首席执行官的日记，并将他们的行为分为两类。

On their definitions, “leaders” have more meetings with other C-suite executives, and more interactions with multiple people inside and outside the company.

按照他们的定义，“领导者”与其他高管会面的次数更多，与公司内外部多人互动的次数也更多。

“Managers” spend more time with employees involved in operational activities and have more one-to-one meetings.

“管理者”会花更多时间与参与运营工作的员工在一起，也会有更多的一对一会面。

Leaders communicate and co-ordinate; managers drill downwards and focus on individuals.

领导者进行沟通和协调，管理者搜索更细节的信息，并专注于个人。

The research suggested that firms that are run by leaders perform better than those run by managers.

研究表明，由领导者经营的公司比由经理经营的公司表现更好。

But pointing to the differences between managers and leaders can also be unhelpful, for two reasons.

但指出管理者和领导者之间的差异也可能并无用处，原因有两个。

The first is that being a leader seems so much sexier than being a manager.

首先，当一名领导者似乎比当一名经理要酷炫得多。

That is partly because leadership qualities are associated with seniority.

这在一定程度上是因为领导力素质与资历有关。

As people scale the corporate ladder, they go on leadership courses, join leadership teams and start sentences with phrases like “as a leader”.

当人们一步步攀爬企业阶梯时，他们会参加领导力课程、加入领导力团队，并在每句话前面加上“作为领导者”这样的话。

It is also because the two archetypes are not created equal.

另一个原因是这两种类型并非生来平等。

Would you rather be the person who likes to do budgeting or the one who holds others in thrall?

你愿意做一个喜欢做预算的人，还是愿意做一个牵制别人的人？

The type that likes the status quo or the one that wants to change the world?

你是喜欢维持现状的类型，还是想要改变世界的类型？

“It takes neither genius nor heroism to be a manager,” wrote Zaleznik.

扎莱兹尼克写道：“成为经理既不需要天才，也不需要英勇。”

No wonder there are feted programmes for young global leaders but not for young global managers.

难怪有大型全球青年领导力培训项目，但没有全球青年经理人培训项目。

The capacity to inspire others and to head into uncharted waters does become more salient the higher you rise.

随着职级晋升得越高，激励他人和探索未知领域的能力确实变得越为重要。

But management skill does not become less important.

但管理能力的重要性并没有随之降低。

Dr Bandiera and colleagues concluded that although CEOs who displayed the behaviour of leaders were associated with better company performance overall, different firms may require different types of boss.

班迪埃拉博士及其同事得出结论，尽管表现出领导者行为的CEO与公司整体业绩提升相关，但不同的公司可能需要不同类型的老板。

Some would be better off with “manager” CEOs.

有些公司更适合“管理型”CEO。

And performance is independently correlated with other things, including the quality of management practices.

而且公司业绩也与其他因素独立相关，包括管理做法的质量。

The second unhelpful by-product of the debate about managers and leaders is that it tends to separate people into one camp or the other.

关于经理和领导之辩的第二个无用副产品是，它往往会把人分入非此即彼的阵营。

In fact, bosses must combine the qualities of both.

事实上，老板们必须将二者的品质结合起来。

Just as it is hard to motivate people if you are highly efficient but have the inspirational qualities of feta cheese, so it is not much use laying out ambitious visions for the future if you don’t have a clue how to make them reality.

如果你效率很高，但像羊奶干酪一样平淡、无法鼓舞人心，那么你很难去激励别人，同样，如果你对将雄心变成现实毫无头绪，那么描绘未来的远大宏图也没什么用处。

You need to turn the dial back and forth—from strategy to execution, change to order, passion to process, leader to manager.

你需要来回拨动指示盘：从战略到执行，从变动到秩序，从激情到流程，从领导到经理。