The Difference Between Leadership and Management

Plus, great vs. good leaders

Author

Hassan Osman
June 11, 2026

In today’s newsletter:

  1. 📖 Two Micro-Habits That Separate Good Leaders from Great Ones

  2. 💬 An HBR Article on the Difference Between Leadership and Management

  3. 🏫 My New Book (That Will Help You Understand Yourself & Others)

  4. 🧠 On the Most Important Job of a CEO

  5. ✍️ An 80/20 Tip You Can Apply Today

Read time: 5 minutes

THE ONE THING

1. Two Micro-Habits That Separate Good Leaders from Great Ones

While we often focus on big leadership decisions and grand strategies, McKinsey's research with over 100 CEOs reveals something surprising: "For many CEOs, the journey toward excellence is paved with small habits woven into daily routines that fortify their capacity to manage their complex jobs."

These aren't revolutionary practices. They're deceptively simple micro-habits that compound over time.

Here are a couple of general habits that are helpful:

  1. The "Look Inward" Habit

Before making any significant decision, emotionally intelligent leaders pause for what researchers call a "metacognitive moment" – a brief check-in with their emotional state. Are they frustrated? Anxious? Overconfident?

This takes literally 10 seconds, but it prevents countless reactive decisions.

  1. The "Broken Shelf" Approach

When Nat Friedman became CEO of GitHub (after Microsoft's acquisition), he didn't start with a vision presentation. Instead, he screen-shared a list of 100+ customer complaints and said: "Today, we're going to fix one. Tomorrow, another. And we'll keep going."

He implemented a small micro-habit over time.

This created three effects:

  • Shock therapy that changed the timeline from quarters to hours

  • Bottom-up learning about where the real problems were

  • Action that spoke louder than any vision statement could

The takeaway

Excellence isn't about perfection. It's about consistency. Pick one micro-habit that addresses your biggest leadership gap. Practice it for 30 days before adding another. The compound effect of these small practices is what separates good leaders from great ones.

INSIGHTFUL THOUGHTS

2. An HBR Article on the Difference Between Leadership and Management

The Harvard Business Review published an article years ago called: What Leaders Really Do

The article goes into the differences between leadership and management, and they summed it up nicely in the article:

In other words, a strong manager is great at “coping with complexity,” whereas a strong leader is great at “coping with change.”

Although both skills are needed in organizations, the surprising takeaway for me was that it’s sometimes better to have strong management with weak leadership than vice versa.

From the article summary:

“…companies should remember that strong leadership with weak management is no better, and is sometimes actually worse, than the reverse.”

HBR, What Leaders Really Do

I’m not sure I fully agree with that takeaway, but I do see how it makes sense in certain contexts.

NEW BOOK

3. My New Book (That Will Help You Understand Yourself & Others)

I published a new book.

It's built on a single word that explains almost everything you do, and almost everything the people around you do.

I spent 2 years writing it, condensing 30+ sources (including 17 books) into one simple framework you can use in everyday decisions.

I think it'll make you a sharper leader, and honestly, a more understanding person.

It's short. About an hour to read.

And it's $0.99 for a limited time.

WORDS I LIKE

4. On the Most Important Job of a CEO

THE 80/20

5. An 80/20 Tip You Can Apply Today

Here’s a low-effort, high-impact tip you can use with your team today:

  • What: Assign tasks to specific individuals (and not to groups)

  • Why: This helps avoid the bystander effect (where everyone’s responsibility is no one’s responsibility).

  • Example: “Sarah will be responsible for completing this task, and both Jessica and Steve will help her out,” is more effective than “Sarah, Jessica, and Steve will be responsible for completing this task.”

Want more of those tips?

Check out my free Amazon Bestselling book called: Influencing Virtual Teams.

You can grab it for free by clicking the button and subscribing to the newsletter 👇️ 

“It’s All About Survival” in Other Countries

Here are the links to the book in different countries depending on which Amazon site you use.