As important as anything else, a leader has to nurture trust and self-confidence. Associates and followers expect leaders to have bold visions and to pursue them with enthusiasm. People being led yearn for a mission or vision that is clearly stated. While it is true that an effective manager is sometimes an effective leader and that leadership requires many of the skills of an effective manager, there are differences. While a good manager is rightly concerned with efficiency, with routines and standard operating procedures, the creative leader acts as an inventor, risk-taker, and general entrepreneur, forever asking or searching for what is right, what is true, what is worth doing, and keenly sensing new directions, new possibilities, and welcoming change.
Leaders can delegate efficiency, yet they have to be responsible for effectiveness.
Leaders dwell on the why and the purpose, while managers dwell on the how, the process. An effective organization needs plenty of managers as well as leaders. But leadership and managerial outlooks are often different and sometimes clash. Leaders recognize the inevitability of conflict, partisan conflict, ideological conflict, and conflict among firms, nations, religions, and tribes. Leaders appreciate that conflict often has to be expressed as a means to some desired end.