The article by John Kotter entitled, What Leaders Really Do is one of the most effective pieces

of writing for determining where you stand in terms of your role as a leader or manager of an
organization and offers suggestions about what elements of leadership you can further develop to
make yourself more beneficial to your organization. As this summary and analysis of What
Leaders Really Do by John Kotter suggests, one aspect of leadership is to first demystify the
differences and similarities between leaders and managers and indicates that leaders are not rare
people with exceptional charisma necessarily and that there is no hierarchy that exists where one
is more important than the other.
Instead, he states that these two roles should compliment one another in their focus and that they
are different entities with differing roles in an organization that are interdependent. While many
people can play roles as leaders in an organization, it is the duty of management to help guide the
group through rough patches and while this involves leadership skills, leading can come from
beyond this managerial role from within members of the organization who can be leaders in the
sense that they are open to changes and can adapt and help others do the same while
management works in terms of organizing and leader work aligning people with new
directions. Since constant change and evolution are such important parts of the success of an
organization, having a balance between the aligning influences of the leaders in the organization
and the management-based duties of organization and assistance with stability through the
change, is vital. With over-management, the human side of the equation is lost, which is just as
important as all of the planning, charting, and organization involved on the management side.
Near the beginning of the article What Leaders Really Do, John Kotter states that most
corporations in the United States are overmanaged and underled. This idea underscores many
of the main ideas since, if this assessment is correct, it means that many organizations are not
allowing managers and leaders to work together, instead favoring a less suitable arrangement
where it is the responsibility of management to handle all of the tasks of organization and
aligning people. Interestingly, not only does Kotter point out that one is not better than the other
(management versus leadership) but that without the equal input and contributions of both sides,
change, which is an important and vital element of any organization, is not as accepted as the
managers are not able to manage the human side of the equation in addition to their
organizational duties. Related to this is the important idea that many people in the organization
can assume leadership roles and in fact, by having more than one official leadership position,
change can be more readily accepted and implemented.
If this is the case as Kotter suggests in What Leaders Really Do then there is no overmanagement because they are committed simply to organization and the more general
implementation of coming changes on a technical level while the other side of change;
acceptance of it and the moving forward end, can be left to those in the organization who are
leaders and can assist others through the time of evolution. This is certainly a different version of
management and leadership than one encounters in many theories because it excludes

managements roles in some arenas by shifting the responsibility of certain duties to those in the
organization who may not hold official titles, but who demonstrate an ability to accept and assist
others with change.
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