Reflections: Why Authority Doesn’t Make You a Leader | Seth Godin

The Entrepreneur’s Studio
Reflections: Why Authority Doesn’t Make You a Leader | Seth Godin 

In this Reflections episode, Seth Godin challenges the common belief that authority equals leadership—and explains why true leadership is voluntary, not assigned. 

Topics Covered: 
• The difference between managing people and leading them 
• Why leadership is voluntary—not tied to authority or title 
• How to create “enrollment” instead of compliance 

If you have authority in your business, does that automatically make you a leader? According to Seth Godin, the answer is no, and believing it does might be holding you back. 

In this Reflections episode of The Entrepreneur’s Studio, Seth breaks down the critical difference between management and leadership. Managers rely on authority to drive consistency and results. Leaders, on the other hand, create movement. They point to a future and invite others to come along without guarantees and without forcing compliance. 

Seth explains that leadership is not about control. It’s about enrollment. Whether with employees or customers, great leaders create the conditions for people to willingly join a journey. Instead of telling people what to do, they tell a story that makes others want to be part of where they’re going. 

For entrepreneurs, this shift is powerful. You don’t need permission, a title, or a team reporting to you to lead. Leadership starts in small moments, trying something new, creating something meaningful, and inviting others to participate. Over time, those moments build trust, momentum, and real influence. 

• Why authority can create compliance but not true leadership 
• How leaders create voluntary followers through vision and story 
• Why small, consistent actions are the starting point for leadership 

“Leadership says, I’m going over there, who wants to come?” 
— Seth Godin 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Welcome back to the Entrepreneur Studio Podcast. I'm your host, Chris Allen, and in today's reflection, we're talking with marketing expert Steph Godin on what makes the difference between a manager and a leader. Let's dive in. You know, Steph, businesses are all about being a team sport, and teams really need good leaders. I'd love to hear from you just how you think about leadership and how you can help entrepreneurs become better leaders.

SPEAKER_02 0:38

There's this whole mythology around leadership that's hooked up to this idea of management. We think that managers need to be leaders and leaders need to be managers. They're completely different. We need managers. You don't have a McDonald's without a manager because no one would show up for their shift if there wasn't a manager. The manager uses power and authority to get people to do what they did yesterday, but just a little bit better. And odds are you are managing someone or several someones in your organization. And when you're managing, you get to say, because I said so. And you need to be very clear about what you want and how it needs to be done. And you're making a promise that it's going to work. That's unrelated to leadership. Leadership says, I'm going over there, who wants to come? Leadership is voluntary, and leadership is both optional and not guaranteed. I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, but I'm going to lead us into that space. And it takes a different kind of attitude and a lot of guts to lead. Most small businesses don't have leaders, they have managers. And if it's working for you, keep doing it. But if you're waiting for authority to lead, you're going to wait forever because there is no connection between authority and leadership. It's simply caring enough to show up, regardless of how many people report to you. Because you can't order people to follow you when you are leading. What you have to do is create the conditions and tell a story that makes people want to go where you are going. And big companies have all these really, really well-paid managers. And some of them have tricked themselves into believing they're leaders, but they lack the guts, the wherewithal, and the commitment to actually lead.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

You know, the thing that you were mentioning just a second ago about enrollment, I would anticipate that what you're saying is that the people that start to follow you and they enroll. Is that what you meant? Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:43

So enrollment works in a lot of different ways. So let's begin with the Wizard of Oz, because I've made it this far without talking about the Wizard of Oz. Um, Dorothy wants to get back to Kansas. When she goes to the lion and the tin man and the scarecrow, she doesn't say, I really need your help to get back to Kansas. I want to get back to Kansas. Please help me. What she says is the wizard will help you. If we can enroll together to go to Oz, I don't have to keep persuading you that we need to go to Oz. You've already decided that you want to go. So enrollment for employees is I signed up to follow here, not just because I'm getting paid. That's what I do when I'm managed, but I signed up to get to where we're going. This is about who do we want to help our employees become. And with customers, enrollment is just as important, which is I can't keep hassling and hustling you to buy the next thing. But if a software company comes out with an upgrade that helps me get my work done, they don't have to sell it to me. I'm going to buy it because I'm already enrolled in that journey. So what we seek is not occasional compliance. What we seek is eager enrollment in the journey. Who do you want to help your employees become? Who are your customers hoping to become? If you can be clear about that, then the strategy will become obvious.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

You were talking just a second ago about sort of difference between manager and leader. Say somebody heard what it is that you just said and they're like, I'm in the box of manager and think that I'm leading. And it's not as easy as flipping a switch. I get that. And I'm going to ask you something that's like, Seth, what's the switch? But what are some of the things that people that believe they're leading and they're managing, what are some of the shifts that could happen to move them into the moments of leadership that they really need where they don't make it, it's not just the manager.

SPEAKER_02 4:43

Right. So when I talk to big shot uh corporate people, they say, Well, I'm willing to lead if you're gonna promise it's gonna work. And I'm like, Yeah, that's not the point. So we begin in the small, as small as you can. A weekly book club that's optional. Planning lunch for an upcoming meeting and not doing it the way you've ever done it before. Tiny little steps that if they fail, no big deal. Tiny steps that no one is required to follow you on, putting you on the hook to become the kind of person that invites enrollment. And there are so many ways to do this. You need no authority. When I was 23 at Spinnaker Software, I had zero people working for me. There were 30 people in the company, and I was handed a new brand. I had no engineers. So I started a newsletter, a desktop published newsletter, every three days, printed on yellow paper and distributed in those little slots in people's mailboxes. And I started mentioning the people I saw in the organization who were doing cool stuff. I didn't do it to manipulate them, I did it to celebrate them. But within three days, people started telling me things that they had done so they would be in the newsletter. And within two weeks, I had three of the engineers volunteering to work on my work. And by the end of the year, there were 40 people in the company now out of 80 who worked for me. Not because I was brilliant, but because I was going somewhere and I was inviting people to join me. But I didn't start by launching a line of science fiction adventure games with Michael Crichton. I started by writing one newsletter that no one gave me permission to write. And maybe no one would have read it, then I would have stopped.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

Getting people to work for you that don't report to you is uh is a big challenge that anybody uh aspiring to be in leadership really is going to face. Uh Seth, it means a lot again that you uh shared a lot of your insights with us. And thanks for helping us uh uh really learn how to be better leaders and the difference between management and leadership. Well, thank you. Keep making a record.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

Thank you for listening to the Entrepreneurs Studio Podcast. Check the show notes for resources and links from today's episode and follow us on Instagram at the entrepreneurs.studio. See you next time.