Leaders understand that leadership is a relationship. Without that relationship there will be no trust or confidence and without trust and confidence there will be no risk and without risk there will be no change and without change organizations die. They lead from the front, not from the rear. They are visible and accessible, not detached and remote. Management teaches us to maintain the status quo and keep it humming along.
Leaders attack the status quo.
They know that the most meaningful accomplishment a leader achieves is when they challenge or change something, not when they keep it the same. Leaders change before they have to, they don't wait to be stampeded into doing it because they've run out of other options. Management teaches that leaders are born and leadership the province of a chosen few. Leaders know leadership is developed not discovered, that it is not conveyed in some special gene or part of a secret code to be cracked. Leadership is a set of practices that can be learned and productively applied.