Management vrs. Leadership

There is a big difference between an leader and a manager. You can teach someone to be a manager but a leader is made through experience and must have a certain set of personality traits. The problem with many companies is the lack of leaders and innovators. Too many companies are run by managers that have a short term mind set when it comes to running an organization. Managers are trained to run things efficiently, which is not always in the best interest of the company. Efficiency always looks the best on paper because it minimizes costs and increases profit in the short term but in the long term it causes companies to lose innovation and miss out on future sales. General Motors creates a good case to look at when companies get rid of leaders and innovators. 50 years ago if you told someone that general motors would go bankrupt they would look at you like you were on crack. The problem with general motors was that they kept trying to cut costs and by doing this they fired people that were considered overpaid but many of these employees were leaders and had a lot knowledge through experience that could have helped the company make not make as many stupid mistakes. Once General motors turned to efficiency over innovation, that was the beginning of the end. This decision gave opportunities other companies, like Japanese companies, the opportunity to come into the U.S. market with new cars that made GM's cars look dated and crappy. This lead to a market share war and eventually caused GM to go bankrupt. Nothing against managers but leaders and innovators are more important in long term orientation.