Leader or Manager?

When you're looking for someone to fill an opening it's important to know what you're looking for. Round pegs and square holes come to mind.

I've heard many definitions of leader vs. mananger but they all boil down to this difference. Leaders facilitate change and managers maintain status quo.

I had a great manager in my first high school job at McDonalds. No one would admit publicly that they liked Dave. But you could tell we all did. He was great at getting us to maximize our training up to McDonalds standards. He didn't set the rules or change the rules. He enforced the rules.

One of our favorite things he did was occasionally he'd come back to the grill area during a rush hour and hold up a $20 bill and tell us that he'd split it between all four crew members when the rush was over. The kicker was he would deduct $1 for every mistake we made over the hour. When minimum wage was about $3 another $5 for the hour was a pretty good deal. So, we worked hard and usually got to split nearly all of it.

McDonalds had a great system. No manager needed make any changes. The crew was trained and the system worked. We just needed to maximize our training. And as we performed well we were regularly rated as one of the top McDonalds in town. Everyone was rewarded for that.

One of the best leaders I've ever known is Richard. He was the sales manager (notice title means little) of a food brokerage. He'd get these young, raw recruits and develop them into a top sales team. He had to motivate and facilitate a number of changes in these sales people in order to get them to be successful. And they were. This team was always among the top performers in the region.

Great leadership begins with the leader. A person can't facilitate change unless he is changing. I watched Richard lead himself through some pretty tough, but important changes. He was not moral as a young adult. He broke trust with his young wife years before. But I was there as they celebrated their 25th anniversary. Anyone who humbles himself and transforms like that is worthy of following.

Change always stirs things up. Status quo, even a bad status quo, is steady. The same is safe. Change is daring and risky.

Paul left Titus in Crete to appoint leaders. And the leader's job was to bring order and settle things. There's the rub.

Leadership implies change. Change stirs things up. But the best leaders calm things down. Titus was looking for "the most interesting man in the world. When he hits you in the mouth you will have to resist the urge to thank him."

Most people are very good at stirring things up. That's easy. Leaders stir people to change then calm them into a new status quo.

So, he's looking for elders for this new organization. He's not looking for managers. The qualifications mean that the men have demonstrated the ability to recognize who really needs to change and bring about the change then settle the people down into a new status quo. All this until the next change needs to be made. And the process repeats itself.

If it were easy we wouldn't need God and anyone could do it. The qualifications are set high and difficult to attain. If any man thinks he's easily qualified he doesn't understand the terms. Leadership is just about the hardest thing any of us could attempt.

So, are you a leader or a manager?