Managing and leading

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Famous author and speaker Brené Brown and Jenny Clark had a conversation on a podcast. Jenny is a seasoned executive recruiter who’s led teams at Spencer Stuart and Google. Her background is intimidating in the best way: 35 years in executive search, talent and leadership, with deep experience in both the trenches and the boardroom.

Brené opened with a hypothesis that felt familiar.

She told Jenny, essentially, that the future is fewer managers and more leaders. “I don’t want people who need managing. I want people who want to be led and coached, not controlled. Can’t we move toward organizations full of leaders instead of ‘managers’?”

Jenny didn’t flinch. She went straight to the dictionary.

Managing, she said, is about dealing with or controlling things and people, organizing, delegating, solving problems and making sure the work actually gets done.

Leading is about guiding and influencing people, setting vision, inspiring, empathizing and taking smart risks.

Then she added four overlapping skills that both leaders and managers need: communication, decision-making, interpersonal skills and adaptability.

In other words, managers make sure the trains run on time. Leaders decide where the trains are going and why. Same tracks. Different jobs.

Hearing that, Brené said, “I want someone who can do all of that—inspire, motivate, empathize, set vision, take risks, communicate clearly, make good decisions, adapt, plan, organize, delegate and solve problems. I want that in one persona, and I want to call them a leader. I don’t want managers or people who need to be managed. I want commitment, not compliance.”

Jenny didn’t argue with the aspiration. Of course, we want people who can inspire and execute. What she challenged was the erasure of management as a legitimate, valuable craft.

“There are some people in managerial roles,” she said, “and that is what they want, and that is what they are good at doing. That is their gift. Managerial responsibilities can develop leadership capabilities, but they are distinct. Managers generally aren’t going to be the ones to set the vision, but they can make sure the trains arrive on time, and the people show up and do what they’re supposed to do.”

Brené was stunned. Never saw that coming. And later she admitted:

“I think I’ve undervalued and under-appreciated some really stellar managers. I diminished and dismissed the value of that work because it wasn’t what I wanted to be.”

For years, business culture has romanticized the visionary leader: the charismatic storyteller on stage, the bold strategist, the “change-maker.” Meanwhile, people who could build systems, allocate resources, coordinate messy realities and quietly keep teams functioning got labeled as “just managers.”

And yet, if you think back on your own career, how many of the best work experiences you’ve had were built not on grand speeches, but on:

A fair boss.

A manager who was organized and predictable.

A supervisor who protected your time. A team lead who made sure you had what you needed to do great work.

Those people were managing. And it mattered.

Jenny also brought data that should sober all of us:

Only 18 percent of people in leadership positions are considered good at leading.

Also, 82 percent of companies choose the wrong people for management roles.

Part of the problem is how we pick them:

We promote for experience — even if that experience was mediocre.

We encourage people we know and feel comfortable with (“I like them, I’ve worked with them before”) and call it “merit.”

We confuse tenure with talent.

Nepo baby? (To throw this in for fun).

But Jenny pointed to a deeper failure: we haven’t been demanding basic human foundations from the people we put in charge.

Integrity.

Respect.

Honesty.

Transparency.

We’ve spent decades in a corporate culture that told us anything too human — like empathy, vulnerability and emotional literacy — was a liability to productivity. Many of today’s managers and leaders were shaped in that environment.

Now we’re shocked that our workplaces are full of disengagement, fear and burnout.

Renaming everyone “leaders” won’t fix that. Eliminating “managers” definitely won’t fix that.

Layer AI on top, and the temptation grows:

“If we can automate the boring parts, maybe we don’t need managers at all. Let the system manage. Let the humans ‘lead’.”

Jenny’s response was blunt: AI doesn’t remove the need for management or leadership. If anything, it raises the bar.

You still need humans who can:

Decide which problems matter.

Craft clever prompts and ask the right questions.

Vet the information that comes back.

Connect data to strategy, timing, politics and culture.

Communicate clearly with the right people at the right moment.

AI can generate options. It cannot choose what’s ethical, wise or aligned with your values and goals.

So the question becomes: Who is accountable for that judgment?

Personally, the difference between Brené Brown and Jenny Clark is that Brené has not led or managed a large company or enterprise, which helps explain the nuances of doing business and dealing with its moving parts. But one thing you need to give to Brené is the vulnerability to learn.

And so should we.

Join and subscribe to Kongversations, the YouTube podcast that reached 10,000 subscribers in just its first six months. You can also catch the podcast “Inspiring Excellence” on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and other major platforms.