The answer is in the question: directors direct, managers manage and operatives operate.
Obvious? Many business owners become directors by default: Companies House requires that a company have director(s) and so entrepreneurs self-appoint. Awarding oneself ‘the top job’ has appeal but directing is a specific skill. Filling in a form IN01 or AP01 merely bestows responsibilities on an individual …but not the skills. Where did you learn to direct?
Directors are responsible for vision, the nature of business, defining its processes and deciding its targets. They divide the process into linked parts for managers to manage with specific resource budgets and performance targets.
Management, like directing, is also a specific skill set. Many managers are hobbled from the outset by poor direction. A couple of common misdirections are palming off something difficult to a manager to sort out and calling it delegating, and delegating a task only to then undermine the manager with micro-management. However, one of the worst crimes of directors upon management is to promote brilliant operatives to management positions as reward for high achievement in their particular field. It is actually quite rare that the best, say, sales person makes a great sales manager – because management is a specific skill.
Management of people has four strands: coaching attitude, training skills, compensating shortcomings and disciplining performance/policy breaches. Good managers should spend most of their time coaching and training for ever higher performance and therefore run well-motivated, efficient teams.
Operational staff are individuals accountable for specific tasks that are sub-divisions of the resources and targets held by their manager. Immediately you should be able to see how hard a manager’s job will be if they themselves lack a clear resource and target envelope to work with.
Leadership can deteriorate over time for a variety of reasons, and one of the more extreme examples I have reviewed features in this blog.