NYNP blog post 2-3-10

"Doing things right" versus "Doing the right thing"
A simple differentiation between management and leadership

Tonight was the first night of Ed Sermier's Leadership and Strategy course at Baruch College's School of Public Affairs, which I'm excited to be taking this semester with many of the United Way Senior Fellows from my cohort in 2008. The course will be examining the concepts of leadership, management, and strategy in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors. Since a lot of trainings focus on leadership development, I'll share some of the insights from this semester here in this blog, as there will be many relevant takeaways for nonprofit trainers.

One thought-provoking takeaway from tonight's class was Sermier's description of the difference between management and leadership: management is about doing things right, and leadership is about doing the right thing. This means that managers focus on efficiency, which is essentially about making existing processes better, whereas leaders focus on effectiveness, which includes thinking about the existing picture and making changes if something should be different in order to be right. Because leaders need to understand the existing picture in order to think critically about it, they need to have a strong understanding of management.

Sermier asked the class to remember that in nonprofits, an important part of being a leader and doing the right thing is helping people who have the least power -- our clients -- especially when the people who do have power lose sight of them.