“My job was to make everyone understand that the impossible was possible. That’s the difference between leadership and management,” reads the back cover of Alex Ferguson’s new book, Leading .

“我的工作就是让所有人都明白，世上没有不可能之事。这是领导与管理之间的不同，”亚历克斯弗格森爵士(Sir Alex Ferguson)的新书《领导力》(Leading)的封底上写道。

It’s hard to think of a business idea that has had more sticking power than the distinction between leadership and management. And, as with most simple but powerful notions, the dichotomy is part caricature, part resonant truth. We have come to use it as a shorthand to distinguish the noble from the slavish, the outstanding from the ordinary, the good from the bad. “The manager is a copy; the leader is an original,” said Warren Bennis, the business scholar.

很难想出一种比领导与管理的区别更引人探讨的商业理念。正如多数简单但有影响力的概念一样，对二者的区分部分是夸大其词，部分蕴含着可以引起共鸣的真理。我们已经将二者的区别当作一种区分高贵与卑贱、卓越与普通、好与坏的简略方式。“管理者只是副本；领导者才是正本，”商业学者沃伦本尼斯(Warren Bennis)说。

Archetypes persist because they convey valuable lessons, but they are myths nonetheless and it’s instructive to trace this one back to its origins.

一些原始概念经久不衰是因为它们可以传递宝贵的经验，但它们是错误的。不过对区分领导和管理的做法追本溯源还是具有启发意义的。

It started with sociologist Max Weber, who distinguished between forms of authority. “Rational-legal authority” is impersonal, based on rules and hierarchical relations that limit personal discretion. “Charismatic authority” is personal, based on exceptional individual qualities, insight or accomplishments, which inspire followers.

最早区分领导与管理的是社会学家马克斯韦伯(Max Weber)，他对权威的不同形式进行了区分。“法理权威”(rational-legal authority)是非个人的，建立在限制个人自由裁量权的规则和等级关系的基础上。“魅力型权威”(charismatic authority)属于个人，基于那些能够唤起追随者的非同一般的个人能力、洞察力或成就。

In the 1970s Abraham Zaleznik, a Harvard Business School professor who was also a psychoanalyst, personalised the distinction. Leaders and managers, he argued, are different sorts of people, driven by different anima. Leaders thrive on risk, think long term and dislike structure; they provoke strong emotions in followers: love and hate, admiration and resentment. Managers thrive on process; they seek order, control and rapid resolution. Zaleznik worried that too many companies favoured collaboration, stifling “the aggressiveness and initiative that fuel leadership”.

上世纪70年代，哈佛商学院(Harvard Business School)教授、精神分析学家亚伯拉罕丠莱兹尼克(Abraham Zaleznik)为这种区分赋予了个性特征。他认为，领导者与管理者是不同种类的人，受不同的灵魂所驱使。领导者乐于冒险，考虑长远，不喜欢规矩；他们可以在追随者中激发起强烈的情感：爱与恨、钦佩与怨愤。管理者循规蹈矩；他们追求的是秩序、控制以及快速解决方案。扎莱兹尼克担忧，太多的公司都更偏爱协作，扼杀了“推动领导力的进取精神和主动性”。

The next generation of business scholars, who blamed the competitive decline of US industry on an insularity bred of over-management, repurposed the distinction. Among the most influential, John Kotter saw management and leadership as different kinds of work, not different kinds of people. Management aims to ensure efficiency through routine planning, organising and co-ordinating; leadership aims to create change by envisioning a better future, aligning those who can make it happen, or block it, and inspiring them to do it.

将美国产业竞争力下降归咎于狭隘的过度管理的下一代商业学者，重新定义了这种区别。约翰科特(John Kotter)是其中最具影响力的学者之一，他将管理和领导视为不同种类的工作，而非不同种类的人。管理旨在通过例行规划、组织和协调确保效率；领导的目的是创造改变，通过设想更美好的未来，找到能够实现（或阻止）这种未来的人，启发他们去实现。

Most organisations, Professor Kotter argued, require a mix of both, the right dose depending on context: the more complexity — more products, geographies, units — the more management is needed; the more volatile the environment, the more leadership is required. He brought the concepts back in line with Weber by focusing on the levers available to executives rather than on their personalities.

科特教授认为，大多数组织都需要两者的结合，怎样结合更有效依赖于具体情况：情况越复杂——产品、涉及地域和机构越多——就越需要管理；而组织所处环境越不稳定时，越需要领导。他将这些概念带回到了韦伯的范畴，专注于高管可利用的手段而非他们的个性。

When managing, one works within one’s sphere of formal authority; when leading, one influences and motivates outside and beyond, since many crucial stakeholders are external.

进行管理时，人们在自己的正式职权范围内工作；当进行领导时，则是在正式职权范围之外发挥影响和激励作用，因为许多至关重要的利益攸关者都在组织外部。

Unfortunately, Prof Kotter’s blockbuster case studies of a day in the life of two contrasting Xerox managers — “Fred” and “Renn” — immortalised the less-nuanced notion of manager and leader as personality types with one clearly less attractive than the other.

遗憾的是，科特教授对施乐(Xerox)两名差别很大的管理者——“弗雷德”(Fred)和“雷恩”(Renn)——一天的生活进行的轰动性案例研究，再次见证了管理者与领导者作为人格类型的差别并不大，因为其中一位明显比另一位缺乏吸引力。

“The distinction is crude,” Patrick Cescau, former Unilever chief executive and InterContinental Hotels Group chairman, told me as he prepared for a recent talk at Insead.

“这样的区分是粗陋的，”联合利华(Unilever)前首席执行官、现任洲际酒店集团(InterContinental Hotels Group)董事长夏思可(Patrick Cescau)对我说，当时他正在为近期到欧洲工商管理学院(Insead)发表的演讲做准备。

“Take any five leading firms and look at their strategies,” he said, “they are all the same. It’s putting the strategy into action, embedding it in the fabric of the organisation and making it happen that is hard. For that you also need managerial qualities.”

“随便找5家领先的公司，看看他们的战略，”他说，“它们都是相同的。真正困难的在于，将战略转化为行动，将其嵌入组织的每一部分，并使战略实现。要做到这些，你还需要管理才能。”

Sir Alex’s co-author, Michael Moritz of Sequoia Capital, has also told me: “Leaders do what they think is right... ability to resist [doing what others expect of them] is the difference between being a manager and being a leader.”

亚历克斯弗格森爵士的合著者、红杉资本(Sequoia Capital)的迈克尔莫里茨(Michael Moritz)也对我说：“领导者做他们认为正确的事……是否有能力抵制（做别人期望他们做的事）是管理者与领导者之间的区别。”

But organisations succeed when large numbers of people, not only the top brass, do what they think is right. That is why ultimately the only way to change an organisation is by institutionalising desired behaviours in processes, systems and structures. Look closely inside any high performing company led by even the most “Zaleznikian” of CEOs and you will find leaders who manage and managers who lead.

但是，当许多人（不仅是高层）做他们认为正确的事时，组织能够成功。这就是为什么最终改变组织的唯一方式，是在流程、制度和结构上将理想中的行为制度化。仔细观察任何高绩效公司内部——即使它们是在最符合扎莱兹尼克定义的首席执行官的领导下——你会发现既有从事管理的领导者也有从事领导的管理者。