Leadership Feels Squishy

I think of "management" and "leadership" as two different things that rarely exist simultaneously in the same person. Tom Peters thinks the two words mean the same thing. Part of the reason I disagree with him is that I don't think you need a management title or that kind of "power" to be a leader.

OTOH, I agree with Tom that talking about whether the two words mean the same thing is a totally, completely, 100 percent waste of time. There's no way to get universal agreement on the subject. That ship has sailed!

Peters does say that, "hard is soft, soft is hard", and on that we agree.

Leadership may look like the pyramid on the left. It feels all squishy-like because, you know, people are complicated! Dealing with that squishiness, getting results through people, that is what leadership is all about!

What do you think?