I don't think leadership and management will ever be mutually exclusive.

It's a battle of semantics. A manager has subordinates, a leader has followers. Since following is a voluntary action, a manager would have to give up authoritative control.

Still, employees can choose whether to follow you, or just acknowledge your orders.

Management skills are what identify that baseline of performance and use it to maximum efficiency. Leadership skills provide motivation so that baseline is increased.

Without a combination of these skills, you're missing out on the full potential of your team.

I would argue that being a "managing leader" is more important than ever to develop a successful team and business.