There are distinct differences in personality styles that distinguish a manager from a leader. Managers personalities emphasize rationality and control. They are task-oriented problem-solvers (focusing on goals, resources, organization structures, or people). Managers are persistent, tough-minded, hard working, intelligent, analytical, tolerant and have goodwill toward others. In contrast, leaders personalities are perceived as brilliant, but sometimes lonely. They tend to attempt to achieve control of themselves before they try to influence others. They have the ability to visualize a purpose and value in the intrinsic nature of their work and the work of those around them. They are imaginative, passionate, non-conforming risk-takers. (Bennis, 1994).
Pascale (1991) said that. "managers do things right, while leaders do the right thing." This means that managers do things by the book and follow company policy, while leaders follow their own intuition, which may in turn be of more benefit to the company in the long run. This is demonstrated in the case of Intuit in Reichheld's (2001) article Lead for Loyalty. Intuit's founder Scott Cook so ingrained the tenet of "treating customers right" into his employee's minds, that when faced with a potential enormously costly error in their product, his team used their intuition to remedy the solution by offering new product to anyone without proof of purchase, plus payment of any penalties resulting from Intuit's error. The team did not pass the buck to Cook, which would have taken more time and extracted much higher costs in negative public relations and cancelled orders. Cooks team acted as leaders, not managers.
Managers adopt almost passive attitudes toward goals. They tend to decide upon goals based on (perceived?) necessity instead of their own desire, and are therefore deeply tied to their organization's culture. Managers tend to be reactive since they focus on current or past information.
