Hey guys, good morning! This is Val Campbell. Thanks for joining me here on Saturday. I'm gonna kind of continue my vein on leadership here, but a little bit of a different topic.
I'm going to talk about the difference between bosses and leaders because I think there's a lot of confusion out there. I've come across this recently through some books I'm reading, posts I'm seeing on Facebook, and that too. And I think a lot of times, the corporate world understands "boss" and "manager," but they oftentimes equate that with "leader." There is a base level of leadership there, but there's so much more—especially when you get into the servant leadership realm. There's a huge difference. So if you want to join me here, I want to go through this and talk about some of the differences, the distinctions, talk about the different levels of leadership, and also kind of humorously share some of the differences between a boss and a leader so you can kind of make that distinction.
So let's jump to one of my favorite quotes here by John Maxwell: "Leadership is influence—nothing more, nothing less." So I think most of us understand at a basic level—you know, we've had jobs, etc.—you know, we've had bosses, managers, and there is leadership there because they are influencing us. They are the influencers; they tell us what to do. So at a base level, this is true. There is leadership there with a boss or manager, but I think they're missing out on so much more. So I want to jump into that. I want to talk—jump to the next slide by John Maxwell—that talks briefly about and illustrates the five levels of leadership because this is where the distinction is made, I think, really, really clearly. So let's jump into that, and here we go.
So again, I think most of us, we've got a boss, manager there at the number one level: positional leadership. They have a position of leadership by their position because of the authority that they've been given. So again, leadership is influence, and really, people follow because they have to. If you've got a boss or manager, as we all have had, you've got to do what they tell you to do or how they tell you to do something because they're in that position of leadership. But it negates the other remaining levels: two, permission; three, production; four, people development; five, pinnacle. And as these go up the scale toward five, I think the air gets rarer and rarer. We're gonna come back and visit this here in a little bit, and I'm going to pose a couple questions about this and kind of hopefully paint a picture so you can see what the real difference is here.
So let's jump humorously to our example of the difference between a boss and a leader. I like this meme—I’ve had this meme for some time, and I thought this would be a great case to use it to do a video. Difference between a boss and a leader you kind of see the boss there, you know, pointing on the left telling somebody what to do; the leader's standing there. So real quickly, here's some of the differences, and it's not completely comprehensive, but I think it's good for illustration purposes here.
A boss really drives employees—that's kind of the proverbial boss, right? Versus a leader who coaches them. And I think we look at the example of coaching a sports team—that a leader, a coach, is there to coach their players to get the most out of them, get a better performance out of them, encourage them. So there's a difference between driving an employee and coaching them.
And then, a boss oftentimes depends on authority—right? We talked about that—positional leadership. They are a leader because they are in a position of authority over you, whereas the leader really relies on their goodwill. And I'd call this rapport—there's some sort of relational aspect there that maybe draws you to or wants you to follow a leader.
Okay, and a boss—this is humorous but sad—inspires fear. How many times have we seen—and we've seen it in TV and movies, but maybe experienced this in real life too—the boss inspiring fear? Right? The big cigar-chomping boss coming and yelling at you, pointing your finger at you, telling you what to do: "You need to get this done, or else," etc., etc. Okay, a leader generates enthusiasm—whole different concept there. How do they get their people to want to perform, get the job or the task done, but do it with enthusiasm? I would take enthusiasm over fear any day, guys, and I think you would too.
A boss says "I"—right? That's their position. A leader says "we"—again, the team element, the team concept, that we work as a team. And how many times have we seen this next one here? The boss places blame for the breakdown. When a job doesn't go right, when you lose a customer, something goes sideways, etc., etc., they're there pointing the finger, blaming, probably yelling too, inspiring fear, of course. A leader looks at that and says, "How do we fix the breakdown? You know, what happened? Why did it happen? How do we make sure it doesn't happen again? But let's fix the breakdown instead of assigning blame and pointing fingers."
You know, a boss—and probably because they are the boss or the manager—they know how it's done, right? A leader shows how it is done. Right? It's the "lead by example." And I'd say to take that a step further, a good leader would never tell one of their followers to do something that they wouldn't be willing to do themselves or that they haven't done. So they lead by example.
And again, a boss—a lot of times because of the dog-eat-dog corporate world, you know, the push for quarterly profits—the boss is there to use people. People are cogs in the machine, and they're there to be used. You know, a leader develops people—right? A whole different concept. Their servant leadership, especially—inspiring, encouraging, motivating people. Whole different thing there.
And then, a boss—seen oftentimes—takes credit when the job goes right. You make that quarterly profit, etc., they're there to receive the kudos, the pat on the back, the handshake. The leader gives credit. It's just like in the sports analogy—you know, that running back scores the last-second touchdown, they win the game. It's not the running back that won the game; it's a team effort. The team celebrates, and that's really the same thing with leadership and servant leadership.
Okay, and a leader commands—right? They're in that position of authority, so they command. They tell you what to do, how to do it, when it needs to be done, etc. A leader asks, "How can I—how can you help me do this? Can you help me with this?" They ask people—right? A whole different concept there.
And lastly, the boss says "go." The leader says "let's go"—the team concept there. Okay, so I hope that makes sense—the differences. Kind of humorous, sad, but I think we've all been there, done that. We see it time after time—it's kind of the same old, same old, you know, day after day and all that. But again, a leader stands out.
And I'm going to jump back to the five levels here real quick, and we're gonna close with this because this, I think, is really where it's at in drawing the distinction out. Right? I think we—again, we've all experienced the number one, positional leaders, and that's what most of us are familiar with in our life. But you go up to number two—it's a permission level. It's really relationship-built. People follow you because they want to. And I hope those of you that are in the job world still, that have bosses and leaders—I hope you're following them, him or her, because you want to. Okay? You're really giving them permission to lead you.
Number three is production—again, a little bit rarer air here. Results-oriented. People follow because of what you've done for the organization. Again, that's kind of you getting up into rarer air here.
Number four—people development. You know, reproduction. And, you know, leaders create other leaders. They're multipliers—or they're not very good leaders. People follow you because of what you've done for them. So leaders are other-oriented; they're focused on the needs of others. Again, servant leadership kind of exemplified there. So people development—how do you develop people?
And the rarest air of all is number five—pinnacle, respect. People follow because of who you are and what you represent. That's really the pinnacle of success, isn't it? And unfortunately, we don't see that live and know very few bosses or managers that would ever be at a pinnacle level of leadership, but I know a pretty good handful of those that are at number five.
So thanks so much, guys, for joining me today. I hope you got some benefit out of this. Kind of hope it's got you to think about and maybe clarify some of the differences between bosses and leaders, that we understand what those differences are. And hopefully, you can see yourself in there. I hope you would aspire to jump into the leadership realm—not just positional, but you know, permission, production, people development, and then respect—and work up that level.
Guys, thanks so much for joining me today. Have an awesome Saturday!
