In my line of work I spend a fair amount of my time talking to people about what they do in their business, voluntary organisation or creative endeavour. Inevitably the conversation eventually comes around to issues of management and leadership. ‘What’s the difference? How do I know if I am a leader or a manager?’ they ask. We then get into a conversation about respective mindsets, behaviours and aspirations and almost always end up with a ‘leadership good, management bad’ kind of discussion. We talk about leaders having vision, passion, strategic intent (hooray!), while managers implement rules, processes and controls (boo!). It seems to me that the easy caricature — or maybe our experience — of Management (the capital M is intentional) gets in the way of really thinking about the value that purposeful management behaviours can bring. With effective management (replace with ‘delivery/process refinement/implementation’ if you prefer) then the ideas, vision and passions of leaders have a chance to gain traction.