They should display Jack Welch’s words on the side of a building in brilliant General Electric bulbs:

“I don’t run GE,” he said, “I lead GE.” ⁱ

And so he did. Love ‘em or not, Welch led GE through a period of extraordinary performance. Was it a perfect run? Of course not. His tenure was marked by great risks and magnificent blunders that reaped great financial rewards and created a powerful learning organization.

Welch identified his ingredients for success in a talk at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. They are, he said, “four E’s wrapped in a P.”

Energy — For Welch, energy means, “…going like a house afire.”

Energizing — Leaders “Energize people to take a chance so they succeed and build self-confidence.”

Edge — Edge means “…the ability to say ‘yes’ and ‘no’ and not maybe.”

Execute — one word: “deliver.”

Success is four E’s wrapped in a P and that P stands for Passion — “Caring more than the next person…” Welch said, “…passion for what you’re doing. It’s all that stuff in you that goes for it and you give everything you’ve got to make it happen.”

These, Welch told his B School audience, are marks of leadership, as distinct from, say, management.

This is not a shot at managers. It’s just no good confusing one with the other. Managing is about stewardship, control, planning, organizing, solving problems…all good stuff.

But it’s not leadership. Leading is about clear vision, aligning people, culture and communication with your company’s mission.

Leaders motivate and inspire and engage people to achieve significant goals together. Managers manage.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. In fact, there’s something quite right about good management. We don’t have any real data to support this but we’d wager it’s easier to turn a great manager into a leader than the other way round. Leadership is played out in what a person does for the company—leadership is not conferred through a job description and certainly not by a title.

In your company, your division, unit, department or team, which function do you perform—management or leadership?

You don’t have to guess. The answer is not hidden deep in your soul; it’s written on the soles of your shoes. Here’s Fredrick Beuchner on the subject of self-examination:

Introspection in the long run doesn’t get you very far because every time you draw back to look at yourself, you are seeing everything except for the part that drew back, and when you draw back to look at the part that drew back to look at yourself, you see again everything except for what you are really looking for. And so on. Since the possibilities for drawing back seem to be infinite, you are, in your quest to see yourself whole, doomed always to see infinitely less than what there will always remain to see. Thus, when you wake up in the morning, called by God to be a self again, if you want to know who you are, watch your feet. Because where your feet take you, that is who you are." ⁱⁱ

OK…So where do your feet take you? How do you spend your time on the job? Get your hands dirty: Download the printable worksheet.

The last two decades gave rise to all manner of initiatives and systems for managing the way to greater margins through cost savings. But no one has demonstrated how we can manage our way to sustainable growth.

Here’s how this nets out: If you were hired to be a leader (or if it’s your company), then lead. Get someone else to manage so you can think about and talk to your people about a bigger vision than simply making payroll. Assess the structures and culture of your company and determine the extent to which they’re aligned with your vision. Then set yourself to the work of promoting that vision morning noon and night—or else get a better vision. Or better people. Whatever the obstacle, lead your way out of it (or around it) and get on with growing your business—that’s what leaders do. (Don’t panic: If all this sounds overwhelming, we started Consulting@InsideWork to help you get from where you are now to where you want to be).

And what if you don’t run the joint? What if you’re not the owner or CEO, but a department head or project manager—what if you want to lead but don’t have the authority or the resources to delegate management?

We’re with Tom Peters on this. For people who don’t run the company Peters is the champion for WOW! projects. He has yet to meet a project that can’t be turned into an opportunity to WOW the boss, the client, the customer or the team. He thinks the WOW project is the key to employment and income in our immediate future.

“Culture change—that big elusive goal—often starts with a single, small WOW! project.” Tom Petersⁱⁱⁱ

We agree. Seize the opportunity to lead right where you are. Look again at the POPCAP worksheet. What leadership activities can you embrace without letting your management responsibilities slide? It may cost some extra hours but see what you can do to frame a vision for your team that’s more significant than meeting the minimum requirements of the job. Find ways to realign the structure and culture of your team to energize people toward the legitimate goal of your work (which is important to say because hijacking your team to a purpose that doesn’t serve your employer pretty much always ends badly).

All this said, we think there may be an even bigger idea at work. Here are words from the apostle Paul:

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

—Colossians 3:23,24.

As far as we’re concerned, that sounds like a mandate for creating WOW! projects no matter where your box sits in the org chart. If you’re not happy with the direction things are moving, instead of trying to manage the tensions, why not try leading your project team or department or business unit or division into a WOW! process with WOW! results? Succeed or fail, it’ll get you noticed (and you can figure out what to do from there right?).