What is the different between proactive and reactive management?

Proactive means addressing trouble before it happens, whereas reactive means dealing with crises as they come. Proactive tends to be better since there will be less crises to deal with. You cannot prevent all crises, but you can reduce the chances of certain ones that are caused by poor planning.

Examples of proactive management include:

1. Thorough background checks as opposed to hiring anyone and regularly firing employees and/or having them arrested for theft.

2. Budgeting for equipment failure or having spare parts/equipment on hand as opposed to shutting down your production until you are able to get things repaired or replaced.

3. Thoroughly training your employees for even rare circumstances rather than "winging it" and exposing them to unknown situations with a risk that they will make the wrong decisions.

4. Budgeting for things such as tax hikes, unforeseen expenses, funding cuts, or whatever as opposed to figuring out how to handle such things when they suddenly occur.

5. Having a good PR team and attorneys on hand to monitor for certain types of problems before they become large ones. For instance, if there is defamation starting, good attorneys can head it off before it gets worse and the PR team can do their best to repair the damage.