Speech on Emotional Intelligence

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

I would like to begin my speech on Emotional Intelligence – the differentiation between Manager and Leader, with a quote.

“It is your attitude at the beginning of a task that determines success or failure.”

Dear friends, Is there a difference between managers and leaders? To me, the answer is—absolutely. After exploring few articles about the differences between managers and leaders, I concluded that the present environment leans towards more managerial than leadership qualities. There is always the opportunity to become a manager, but becoming a leader takes a certain kind of higher learning and understanding in order to be practiced effectively. A manager finds immediate solutions, a leader questions the solutions. The term manager exemplifies the more structured, controlled, analytical, orderly, and rule-oriented person. The leader exemplifies a more experimental, visionary, unstructured, flexible and risk taking person. Managers and leaders think differently internally, therefore the outcome is different externally. I would like to put across few examples to crystallize the differences between managers and leaders.

The Manager…	The Leader…
Maintains	Develops
Accepts reality	Investigates it
Has a short-range view	Has a long-range perspective
Has his/her eye on the bottom line	Has his/her eye on the horizon
Imitates	Originates
Accepts the status quo	Challenges the status quo
is Classic good soldier	is His/her own person
is analytical / structured / orderly	is experimental / visionary / creative
Use the power of logical mind	Use the power of intuition
Consider dangers	Sense opportunity
Isolate	Correlate
Think rivals/Competition	Think Partners/Cooperation
Correct Strategic Weaknesses	Build on Strategic Strengths
Administer Programs	Develop People
Formulate Policy	Set Examples
Instruct	Inspire
Control	Empower
Employ Consistency	Employ Creativity
Duplicate	Originate
See Complexity	See Simplicity
React	Proact
Plan	Experiment
Ask How	Wonder Why
Think Logically	Think Laterally
is Skeptical	is Optimistic
Take Charge	Encourage Delegation
Perform Duties	Pursue Dreams
is Dependent	is Independent
Inhabit the Present	Reside in the future
Want Good	Demand Better
Follow versions	Pursue visions
Is Static	Is Evolving
Easily fire employees	Would rather self-improve employees
Scrutinize performance	Search for potential
Fixed	Mutable
……. and a lot more differentiations can be established.

Warren Bennis, — a popular writer of leadership resources — quotes that “There is a profound difference between management and leadership, and both are important. To manage means, to bring about, to accomplish, to have charge of or responsibility for, and to conduct. Leading is influencing, guiding in a direction, course, action, opinion. The distinction is crucial…  Managers are people who do things right and the leaders are people who do the right thing.” In my opinion, these examples show the slight differentiation between the manager and the leader. However, this slight difference is what makes a person distinguishable between their power to perform and their power to transform. 

Thank you.