Lao Tzu - On Leadership

When one with the highest excellence does not wrangle about his low position, no one finds fault with him.

By being lower, rivers and seas are able to receive the homage and tribute of all the valley streams—thus they rule over them all. So it is that a wise leader, wishing to be above men, puts himself by his words below them, and, wishing to be before them, follows them.

The earliest people did not know that there were rulers. In the next age they loved them and praised them. In the next, they feared them; in the next they despised them. When rulers had no faith in the unvarying way, the people had no faith in the rulers.

How deferential the earliest rulers appeared, showing the importance they set on their words! Yet their work was done and their undertakings were successful, while the people all said, "We did it ourselves!"

A wise leader has said, "I will not try to change things, and the people will be transformed by themselves; I will be fond of tranquility, and the people will by themselves become correct. I will not pursue riches, and the people will by themselves become rich; I will manifest no ambition, and the people will become as natural as uncarved wood"

A wise leader grasps humility, and manifests it to all the world. Free from self display, he is conspicuous; free from self-assertion, he is distinguished; free from boasting about himself, he is valued greatly; free from self-complacency, he acquires superiority. Free from striving ambition, he finds none strives against him.

Thus a wise leader puts his own person last, and yet it is found in the foremost place; he treats his person as if it were foreign to him, and yet that person is preserved. Is it not because he has no personal and private ends, that such ends are therefore realized?

Seize power and try to manipulate people, you will not succeed. People have their own way and cannot be manipulated. What you attempt to seize, you destroy; what you attempt to grab, you lose.

Lao Tzu - Tao Te Ching (approx. 3rd Century BCE) 

This and so much more requires psychological understanding if we are to perceive the damage 'Control systems' like ERP and standard accounting practice can have on performance when their use is not understood at this depth - Just as Taiichi Ohno promoted when trying to get the West to understand TPS - In leadership there has to be an element of 'Letting go' - and in my own words, "to gain control we must give control" and at the moment all of our logical systems 'Take control' away from 'people'.

This was posted as an answer to a question on LinkedIN - "how would a systems thinker describe the differences between a leader and a manager?" In answer to this original question, I'd suggest a 'Systems thinker' would describe the differences between a manager and a leader as; one who relies upon systems to control or understands and uses systems to get the best from those people he serves.