Leadership vs Management
Time doesn’t wait. We are already halfway through July, 3 more days and we cross that halfway mark. The older I get, the more I realise you cannot slow time. You cannot pause it, manage it, tame it like an asset in a spreadsheet. You can only decide if the way you are spending it is valid.
Earlier this week, I drove my car to Singapore with a few young teammates. They are good kids, hungry, willing to sit through long meetings with old souls like Dr Elias. The man always opens your brain and pulls out things you didn’t know you had. After we wrapped up, we crossed the checkpoint back into Johor Bahru. The air always feels different crossing back, more familiar, yet sometimes heavier with reality.
I asked them a simple question, “What’s your biggest takeaway today?”
I thought they would say something about finance, new market ideas, or big trends. But one young guy, probably in his early 20s, said, “I learned the biggest thing is the difference between leadership and management.”
That’s when I knew, this isn’t common sense. Maybe we talk about it too much in abstract terms. Maybe we forget how easy it is to drift back into just managing. And when you forget the difference, you start treating living things like they are dead parts in a machine. You force dead rules on living systems. And when you do that, you kill growth twice.
When the ‘Expert’ Stops Growing
I have seen it happen to industrial experts, the ones so good at what they do, they never think they need to lead. The surgeon who saves lives in the operating theatre but tears down nurses with their words. The finance guru who can read P&L blindfolded but can’t see the real fears behind a team’s silence. These people survive and thrive on their skill alone. They can offend people, push people out, but they still have the technical edge the world pays for.
And there is a part of me that envies how straightforward that is. You just keep polishing your craft, and that’s enough. But for me, as an edu-preneur, I don’t have that safety net. I can’t hide behind technical know-how. My whole calling is to run schools and education ventures like living organisms. Systems, yes, but alive. That’s why the first P&L: Profit & Loss, must always exist to protect the second P&L: People & Legacy. Without leadership, the first shrinks and the second suffocates. Without management, the first collapses under its own dreams.
What You Manage vs. What You Lead
There is a line I always come back to:
“You manage what is dead. You lead what is alive.”
The more you try to manage the living like they are dead, the more you kill the very thing you hope to grow.
Time is the best example. Try to manage time and you are already failing. You can’t freeze the sun. You can’t press pause on the seasons. What you can manage is your priority within the time you have. You can decide which fire to put out, which seeds to plant, which weeds to pull. But time itself is alive. It moves whether you like it or not.
Same with people. Same with culture. Try to manage them like static resources, they will resist. Or worse, they will obey at surface level and decay from within.
Where Management Works, Where It Doesn’t
Management is not the villain. It is necessary. I still remember the first time I understood the beauty of a good manager. I walked into one of our campuses late one evening to get some stuff. The building maintenance head was walking the corridors, switching off lights, adjusting chairs, checking that the next day’s supplies were in order.
That is the quiet backbone, the routine that holds up the vision. You want a clean campus, safe children, parents who trust your word? You had better manage that well.
But what happens when you need to change the entire way your cafeteria serves food? Or when you need to open a campus in a place people say you can’t afford? Or when parents complain about buses, not because of a missed stop but because they feel unseen? Those are not mechanical problems. Those are living problems. You can’t spreadsheet them into order.
A Clear Distinction: Technical vs Adaptive
Heifetz calls this technical versus adaptive. Technical problems are known problems with known solutions, like changing a light bulb. Adaptive problems are living, the issue is not clear, the solution is unknown, and the people themselves must change. You can’t fix that with an SOP alone.
Kotter adds another layer, management brings order. Leadership drives change. Warren Bennis said, managers do things right. Leaders do the right thing. These old truths hold. They always will.
Because you can perfectly manage a system in the wrong direction, and do it with complete efficiency. That is how we end up with dead but well-oiled machines.
The Chef Who Thought He Knew
The kitchen is my favourite example. When we decided to cut out processed food completely, the crew used their old method. Quick, easy, full of additives. We stepped in and said, “Zero processed food, full stop.”
Our head chef nearly lost it. He told me, “I have cooked in 5-star hotels. I have fed VIPs. You are telling me what I am doing is not worthy for your school?”
If I had only managed him, I would have forced more inspections, rules, penalties. He would comply and look for ways to cut corners behind my back. But instead, I sat with him and explained, again and again, why it mattered. I had to speak his language. It took months, but when he got it, he started sourcing local, teaching our team what fresh really means. That is not management. That is leadership, leading someone through the discomfort of the unknown to build something alive.
Routine vs Revolution
One of the biggest mistakes is trying to lead the routine. You do not lead a bus timetable. You manage it. You do not lead a meal order. You manage it. But when you decide to rebuild trust in how families experience transport, that is leadership. When you decide to redefine what food means to growing minds, that is leadership.
And yet, without management, leadership dreams become a black hole. They are not enemies. They are partners. One keeps the engine running. The other changes the road you are on.
The Burnout That Exposed Everything
Another place where this difference slapped me in the face was teacher burnout. We had a season when morale was dropping. Tension in the air. Some teachers clocked out right at 4:30pm, like ghosts disappearing. Others stayed back long after they could’ve left, not because we forced them, but because they felt responsible for what they were building.
At first, the easy fix is to manage: install a punch card system. Track hours. Shorten working days. Redistribute workload. All these feel like solutions, but they only manage the surface. The real question is always under the surface: What are we really solving here?
That’s when you see the difference:
Management would’ve tweaked schedules, added a new incentive. Leadership asked, Why do some people feel this work is worth extra time, while others can’t wait to escape? It’s purpose. It’s trust. It’s identity. You can’t manage those things. You must lead them.
The Culture Check
It’s the same in any department. I’ve seen 2 teams under 1 roof, same workload, same deadlines. One goes the extra mile. The other does the minimum. The culture you build is alive. You can’t manage that with more policy. You lead it through conversations, clear conviction, visible commitment.
When you see subcultures like that: one thriving, one stagnant. Ask yourself: Where did I force dead rules onto something that needed a living reason?
Priority, Not Time
Let’s come back to time. Because it’s the trickiest lie we tell ourselves: “I just need to manage my time better.” You can’t. Try managing the sun. Try slowing it down. Try freezing the clock. The sun doesn’t care about your plan. Neither does time.
What you manage is your priority. Every day, you get 24 hours. The sequence, the energy you give, the order in which you face what comes, that’s the real battle. That’s leadership of self. And it’s the first leadership any of us must master.
Routine vs Revolution (Revisited)
Imagine the picture of routine vs revolution.
You manage the daily meal plan. That’s routine.
You lead a kitchen revolution for healthier food. That’s transformation.
You manage the bus schedule. That’s routine.
You lead a conversation about what transport means for parents who trust you with their kids. That’s transformation.
You manage the class timetable.
You lead an entire campus opening when people say it’s impossible because you see value where others see cost.
When People Say It’s Not Logical
I remember when I first talked about opening a new site. People laughed at me. “You’ve been telling us about this for so long. Where’s the proof? Who’s going to work with us?” They couldn’t see it yet because leadership is often beyond logic. On paper, it looked foolish. But leadership means you see a potential that doesn’t yet exist, and you persuade others to see who you can be, not who you are right now.
People called it empty talk until the plan became visible. Then suddenly, it wasn’t nonsense. But you must be willing to look foolish long enough to let the living thing grow.
Technical vs Adaptive, The Final Test
I come back to this:
Technical problems: known issue, known fix. Manage it.
Adaptive problems: unknown issue, unknown fix, people must change. Lead it.
When parents complain about something simple, management can fix it. When the root issue is trust, connection, or culture, only leadership can reach that depth.
Where Most People Get Stuck
Most people confuse the two. They try to manage adaptive problems with technical solutions. They suffocate living problems with dead rules. And they wonder why they feel stuck: feeling ‘pekcek’ for no reason. If you feel that constant low-level frustration, check your approach. Are you forcing the wrong tool onto the wrong problem?
The Real Paradox
The real paradox is you can perfectly manage the wrong direction with beautiful reports and tidy charts. But you’ll be moving faster in circles. A well-managed system going nowhere is still going nowhere. A messy, living system with good leadership will find a way to grow.
Conviction and Cause
Leadership always needs that last element: conviction. The eye to see beyond your own self-interest. The belief that what you’re building isn’t just for your title or your salary, but for something bigger: the community, the city, the nation, or even the world. A cause that survives your limitations.
At Stellar, we can run a good school with good management. But we’re here to redefine what education can be. That means our leaders must lead through ambiguity, uncertainty, new problems. The day we stop leading and only manage, we become just another school. Another machine with living people trapped inside it.
The Reverse Insight That Redefines It All
The real trap is not managing too little. It is trying to manage what must be led.
The moment you force dead rules onto living systems, you kill growth twice:
- You kill theirs.
- You kill your own.
The paradox is this. You can run a perfect system in the wrong direction and feel proud of your charts. But a well-managed dead machine can never grow. The opposite of good management is not chaos. It is not poor management. The opposite is forgetting that some things must be led, not controlled.
That is the tension that keeps us alive.
Your Living Check
Ask yourself:
What problem are you solving right now?
Is it technical? Manage it.
Is it adaptive? Lead it.
Are you trying to manage a living thing with dead rules?
If so, stop. Shift your lens. Lead what breathes.
The Final Reminder
We can’t manage time. We can only manage priority. We can’t manage people like they’re dead. We lead people like they’re alive. And if you ever forget, look at where you feel stuck, annoyed, restless, it’s the tension telling you, “You’re using the wrong tool.”
Dead vs Living: The Legacy Question
So here’s what I leave you with:
When the day comes, will what you built stay alive when you’re gone?
Or did you trap something living inside a machine that dies the moment you step out?
Don’t kill growth twice, both theirs and yours. Manage the dead. Lead the living. And manage your own priority first.
