Are You a Manager or a Leader?

I first contemplated this choice 45 years ago when I was a student at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. One of my professors gave our class a self-evaluation that was supposed to determine whether we were more suited for management or leadership.

Given all the hard work I was putting in to earn my MBA, I really hoped my results would show I was a leader, not just a manager. As much as I wanted that outcome, I resisted any temptation to skew my responses and simply answered the questions honestly. My evaluation, as I recall, was inconclusive, somewhere between a manager and a leader.

More than four decades later, as the former chair and CEO of Baxter International and now a professor at Kellogg, I have observed that many students, academics, and businesspeople have misconceptions about managing versus leading. As they see it, leaders in the organization set the strategy and define the priorities; they are future-focused, driving results for the long term. Then it’s up to the managers to execute according to that plan.

However, the fact is managers and leaders are far more aligned than they are different.

Becoming a manager

To understand a manager’s role, we need to first step back to consider the starting point for most professionals: as individual contributors. Focused mostly on themselves, individual contributors do their jobs with the goal of wanting their boss to think highly of them. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that; but this approach does make the individual contributor a lot like an MBA student who collaborates with others but still wants the best grade in the class.

As soon as someone enters management, priorities shift. Even first-time managers, who may have only three or four people reporting to them, need to focus on their team rather than themselves. For example, a significant responsibility for the manager is recruiting and developing the right people. Together, the manager and their team accomplish the goals and objectives assigned to them. In fact, one of best outcomes for managers and their teams is earning a reputation for getting things done.

Good managers are the champions of corporate culture

Beyond carrying out the plans and the strategies, managers also occupy another crucial role within organizations. Along with assigning and managing the work performed by their team, they motivate and inspire others. In fact, when people within the organization think about corporate culture, they associate it with how their manager acts and treats others.

As my colleague at Kellogg Brooke Vuckovic states, middle managers are often the “unsung heroes” who champion principles and choose to do “the right thing over what is simply most expedient.” This is high praise for middle managers, recognizing the difference they can make in the lives of others.

When I first became a manager, one way I tried to empower others was to make sure they knew as much as I did. I practiced this with the five people reporting to me. If the vice president of our division wanted to know about an analysis we were working on, I always brought at least several members of my team to the meeting. Not only would they get recognized for their good work, but they would hear the feedback from the vice president directly and in real time. When this wasn’t possible, as soon as I left the meeting, I would immediately update the group on what happened—and, if possible, I would tell them face-to-face.

The more I informed my team, the better they performed. Frankly, that made us all look good.

Leaders never stop managing

What happens when a manager moves further up in an organization? When they cross the line into leadership, does everything change?

Conventional wisdom sees leaders as strategic, visionary, and above the day-to-day “management stuff.” These leaders see themselves as so focused on the future to create and generate change, they tell themselves they can’t possibly be involved in short-term plans and objectives. It’s as if these leaders see it as their role to climb up the mountain, pick up a few tablets, gaze at the horizon, and think great thoughts. That attitude, however, is very limiting—not only on your perspective as a leader, but also on your leadership tenure.

You cannot be an effective leader without strong management skills such as prioritizing, allocating resources, and recruiting the right people for the right positions. Today, I believe even more strongly that you will not be a good leader unless you are also a good manager—with a strong track record of executing and implementing.

From manager to leader

By now I hope you’re convinced that being a good manager is necessary for becoming a leader. However, management skills alone are not sufficient. While you never stop being a manager, there is another set of skills required for leadership. You need to have a broad view of the enterprise, as well as the ability to dig deeply into problems, disruptions, and opportunities.

I describe it as flying an airplane and drilling with an oil rig. As a leader, when you’re in the airplane at 30,000 feet, you survey the landscape—or, in this case, the entire organization. You see what’s working and what’s not; where plans and objectives are being hit, and where things are behind expectations.

To focus on those problematic areas, you swap the airplane for the oil rig. Now you are drilling deep, well below the surface of the apparent issues. You’re asking questions as you probe the underlying problems, as well as the potential solutions. The good thing about that oil rig is that it exposes everything—no secrets hidden under a rock!

After the issues have been addressed, you’re back on the airplane and heading in another direction. The good news is that every other part of the company that has heard about the oil rig knows you’re coming—and they’re going to be doing some drilling of their own before you arrive in their area.

Leadership, after all, is all about asking the right questions and then listening for the responses. If what you’re hearing is logical and makes sense based on your past experiences, then you can be satisfied with the information you have received. Otherwise, you’re firing up that oil rig.

Your leadership skills allow you to be future-focused across the entire enterprise. But it’s your management experience that helps you roll up your sleeves and dig deeply to uncover problems and produce results.

That brings us back to our question: To manage or to lead? The answer, clearly, is yes—both!

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This article originally appeared in Forbes.