A few years ago when starting on my current career, I attended a number of courses on management, or leadership, or management and leadership, and at each one this same issue came up.

And since then, I have never fully understood why you have to separate them. I get the ‘managers push and leaders pull’ concept; however, in practice:

– as a manager I need to lead the individuals within the team and the team itself to be constantly improving,
and
– as a leader I need to manage the individuals within the team and the team activities as a whole so that is does that.

You can’t do one without the other.