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Leadership and management are not the same. Amazingly, people often get this wrong. Bosses are frequently confused with leaders, and subordinates are confused with followers. That said, a boss may very well be a leader, but it is not a foregone conclusion. Just because a boss has the title or power in the relationship, doesn't mean that boss is a leader. We have all seen these bosses in action—the titled executive or manager who oversees a large team but has no followers. Some employees do as they are instructed by the boss, but not because they are being led or because those employees are drawn to follow, but rather because they fear the boss's reprisals. This is not leadership.

Sometimes we see this demonstrated in nonbusiness settings, such as politics. All too frequently, we find ourselves governed by a politician who, although they were voted into office, they are not an actual leader. These individuals may not even have the credentials to be qualified for the role. Although they certainly have the position, they do not garner a broad following.

My favorite book on explaining the differences between leadership and management is A Force for Change by John Kotter. We confuse leadership with people in managerial functions. Kotter lays out the stark differences between mobilizing groups of people in a common direction (leadership) and organizing a group of people to accomplish a task or run a function (management). Kotter makes a special point to parse leadership from the commonly misused title of someone who sits atop a business function or organization, what we call in this book, a titled executive.

Kotter rightly argues that simply by virtue of holding a position at the top of a team, department, or an entire organization doesn't imply that the person is actually providing leadership. Despite the book having been written in 1990, we continue to imbue the elements of leadership unwittingly onto these managers and titled executives.

What is amazing, though, is when these teams or departments produce extraordinary results despite the lack of leadership at the top. How is it that teams can function despite this lack of leadership at the top? In some cases, it's momentum from a previous manager. In other cases, the product carries itself. But more commonly, success is driven by followership in action. Professionals who are not in the top spot are able to step up to fill the leadership void by wielding influence among their peers.

What motivates people to fill the leadership gap left by their managers? Some employees are motivated by their own career aspirations, seeing the void as an opportunity to demonstrate their capabilities. Others are motivated by serving the customer out of a need to simply do the right thing. These employees are driven by the greater purpose their organization is pursuing.

Titled managers or executives have power. Simply by nature of their title or position, these bosses can get others to do their work. Confusing this with leadership can lead to disastrous results. Some companies mistakenly have managers run leadership development training sessions. Such training sessions likely merge the concepts of leadership and management, but these two disciplines require very different skills. Companies can and should train separately for good management and for good leadership. Far too often, companies conflate the two and they wonder why the results are suboptimal.

Leaders do not need to be good managers, but depending on how high up in the organization the position, good management requires leadership. We have seen many good leaders who cannot manage well. If these good leaders are self-actualized, they recognize that they need to have good followers who are also good managers. They can delegate the management skill far more effectively than a follower can fill a leadership void.