By Mary E. Morrison

Don’t just manage, lead. That’s the advice of Seth Godin, author of 10 international bestsellers, including Permission Marketing and Purple Cow, and founder of the first Internet-based direct marketer Yoyodyne, which in 1998 was sold to Yahoo! for a reported $30 million. In his latest book, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us (Portfolio, 2008), Godin argues that the Web has created an unprecedented number of “tribes” and an opportunity for passionate leaders. To learn more about how effecting change can help smart CIOs transform their IT departments into tight knit tribes, contributing writer Mary E. Morrison spoke recently with Godin. Here are excerpts of their conversation.

In the context of business, what’s a tribe? And why do we need more — and better — leaders now?
A tribe is any group of people connected to each other, an idea, and, often, to a leader. We’ve always had tribes; for 75,000 years people have been in tribes. But most of those have been geographic tribes, spiritual tribes or work tribes. What’s changed in the past few years is that we’ve made it easy for people to find like-minded folks around the world. People can connect over a political cause or a hobby or a job or a profession. As a result, these groups are being formed without enough people to lead them. If you’re a leader of people, you’ll never have trouble getting a job. You will have no trouble finding the referral you need to get to the next level.

You make a distinction between managing and leading. What’s the difference?
Management is about getting predetermined results out of a group of people — getting them to do a task that’s already been done before. You manage a fast-food restaurant because you know that if you press certain buttons and people show up and do certain things, you will get that hamburger out on time. Leading is about causing people to do something that may be unpredictable, something that, when done with good intentions, may be bigger and better than anyone ever expected. Leading is how great things come about. We still need managers — managing doesn’t go away — but it’s a fundamentally different task than leading.

What are the characteristics of a good leader?
You can’t tell by looking at someone whether he or she is a leader. Charisma does not make you a leader; instead, leading gives you charisma. It’s not who you are, it’s what sort of connection you make. It’s about committing to the cause of the tribe and about connecting people to one another. It’s about communicating to people what it is that you’re trying to accomplish and leading a movement. The actions you take are what determine whether you’re going to be a good leader or not — not what you were born with or what your DNA says.

So if leaders are made, not born,how does a CIO make the transition from manager to leader?
Leading is important — that’s the most difficult part. Most people aren’t looking to join a new tribe, which is why it’s sometimes so difficult to take over for another great leader who has moved up the ladder and on to a bigger tribe. However, people will follow you when you are giving them something they aren’t getting elsewhere. They want to belong. They want their presence to be missed if they’re not there and their opinions to count if they are. Leading starts with respect. Once you give someone respect, they are more likely to respect and follow you.