Are You Leading or Managing?

We are all leaders in some area of our lives. Some of us are leaders at work, some in politics, some in our families or communities. In essence, leadership involves working with people to achieve our collective goals.

Source: Dr. Sam Jennings, used with permission

There’s a major difference between managers and leaders. Managers maintain the status quo and oversee the day-to-day operations, while leaders inspire the people around them to contribute to their vision of the greater good (Dreher, 1996). According to leadership development coach, Sam Jennings, PhD, leaders bring their teams into this larger vision with a process of shared communication (Sam Jennings, personal communication, July 3, 2025).

Five key factors can make us all better leaders: listening, shared vision, awareness of strengths, a growth mindset, and respect.

1. Listening

Active listening in the tradition of psychologist Carl Rogers, Ph.D. (2015), is an essential leadership skill. According to Dr. Jennings, “the leader should be prepared to listen as carefully as possible in order to both understand and ask good questions.” When an employee comes to a supervisor to offer a suggestion or critique, he says, “This takes some courage for most folks.”

He explains that leaders need to listen carefully, focusing not only on what is said, but also on the underlying emotions and what remains unsaid. This means asking follow-up questions like “Could you please tell me more about that?” or “How did that make you feel?”

2. Shared Vision

Leadership involves awareness of the larger vision. When making major decisions, leaders need to ask themselves questions like “Who will be affected by this decision?” and “How will it affect them?” For example, Dr. Jennings says, “If a company is considering changing employees’ benefits package to cost 10 percent less, that might sound good on the surface, but if this change also cuts 20 percent of their benefits, that’s not such a good decision.”

And, he says that leaders make better decisions when they can see how they fit within the goals of the organization. They might ask questions like “Does this actually help us?” or “If it doesn’t help, does it at least reduce the pain?”

3. Awareness of Strengths

Today’s leaders need to know their own strengths and those of the people around them. Positive psychology research has identified 24 character strengths common to all humanity (Peterson & Seligman, 2004). Research has shown that when we use our top strengths on a regular basis, we are happier, healthier, and more successful (Seligman et al., 2005).

Dr. Jennings points out what can happen when people don’t use their top strengths, explaining how one company assigned two employees to different tasks for professional development. The more people-oriented person was assigned to do the nuts-and-bolts planning, and the person who was good at nuts and bolts was assigned to people-oriented work. In a few weeks, both people told management that this assignment was not working. The company then swapped their responsibilities so each person could use their strengths.

“Most folks are not very productive if they don’t feel like they’re being successful,” Dr. Jennings says, “so let people do what they’re good at.” But he admits that, too often, people forget this vital lesson, and when someone is really good at programming or sales, that person is often promoted to management, which involves different strengths.

Leaders need to know their own strengths and weak spots as well. Years ago, during a job interview, when Dr. Jennings was asked about his attention to detail, he honestly admitted that he had reasonably good attention to detail but was not a skilled proofreader. When careful proofreading was necessary, someone else would need to do the job. Such self-awareness is essential for good leadership.

4. A Growth Mindset

Leaders need to keep learning, to have what psychologist Carol Dweck, Ph.D., calls a “growth mindset” (2007). Instead of shrinking back from new experiences out of fear of failure, people with a growth mindset view such experiences as a process of learning and growth. They don’t feel threatened when someone disagrees with them or when new facts contradict their preconceived notions.

Falling into the historical logical fallacy of “We’ve always done it this way,” keeps people stuck in the status quo. Effective leadership takes honesty, courage, and perseverance. According to Dr. Jennings, the leader can admit being uncomfortable, saying, “Yes, it’s difficult. And we can make a path to get there.”

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Having a growth mindset helps leaders be aware of changing trends. When Dr. Jennings did research 20 years ago, he says, “the number-one predictor of people leaving their jobs was their boss, and money wasn’t among the top factors. Over time, the importance of compensation has moved up the ranking. Leaders need to know this because now, if a person wants to leave, money may well be part of the problem.”

Referring to recent reports about GenZ workers having micro retirements—actually quitting a job to be unemployed for a short time, then looking for a job again—Dr. Jennings says this should make us take a serious look at our work culture. While “some of our European friends have a lot more vacation, a lot more parental leave, and more time off,” than we do in our current American work culture, he says that many people work long hours and don’t take vacations, afraid they’ll be fired if they don’t overperform. But fear doesn’t motivate people to do their best work, and stressed-out, exhausted people don’t function well.

5. Respect

Ultimately, leaders need to respect the people they work with. For Dr. Jennings, the best leaders “will create a space where the people know they can ask a question, they can make a decision, they can make an assertion without fear of being belittled or chastised or even punished, because it’s a collection of adults working toward a larger goal, not people trying to do their bare minimum to not get fired.”

How can you use these insights in your own leadership today?