Are The Behaviors Of Managers And Leaders Different?

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The essay is prepared to discuss whether the behaviors of managers and leaders are that different or not. There is a need to assess the various personality types and behaviors of both the individuals, i.e., the managers and leaders, thus, come to an ultimate conclusion and judge, whether these two aspects are different or nearly the same. While managerial development focuses more on building control, competence, and maintaining an appropriate balance of power, leadership is more about guiding employees in the right direction, articulating a proper vision, inspiring individuals, and working towards their passion to achieve success (Kotter 2017). This not only promotes good corporate growth but also ensures bringing stability and driving corporate success too. Though the roles might be similar across organizations, the difference between leaders and managers lies in terms of the perceptions they hold, behaviors, and style. While managers seem to embrace procedures, focus on gaining stability and control, while trying to resolve issues and problems proactively, in contrast, the leaders tolerate a lot of chaos and emphasize understanding the issues and their significance prominently. Thus, it is often believed that business leaders are more creative, in terms of thinking than the managers of organizations. There should be a proper discussion of concluding, though there is a need for both managers and leaders to attain business growth and success (Ibarra and Scoular 2019).  It should though incur a lower focus on strategic procedures and logic while prioritizing the creation of an environment that encourages both creativity and imagination to flourish consistently.

Now coming to the question of whether the behaviors of leaders and managers are that different or not, society has provided varied opinions and answers that define a deeper understanding of behaviors, purpose, distribution of roles, and also use of control and power. Business organizations have contributed to the answer to this leadership by introducing a new individual, which is a breed of leadership, i.e., the manager. The businesses have also established a greater power ethic that favored collective leadership, rather than individual leadership behaviors, thus, cultivating an environment of better competency, control, and balancing of the power aspects too (Schwarzmüller et al., 2018).  There are chances of potential, in terms of rivalry and power, still, managerial leadership does not encourage creativity, innovation, and imagination every time, rather it promotes ethical behaviors that guide the growth and success of corporate entities.

According to Rosenbach (2018), the leaders are more aligned with the use of power and control for influencing the actions and behaviors of individuals, working under the leader, The power that the leaders hold or possess represent the risks that they undertake, which represent balancing both power and individual ability to get things done properly, gain appropriate outcomes and prevent risks associated with losing self-control and power. It has been found from various evidence and information that the personality of leaders and managers differ as well as their behaviors and working styles. While the culture established by a manager, more importantly, emphasized control and rationality, managers are more directed towards the goals and objectives, required to be achieved, utilization of resources, and organizing structures and people within the workplace. Managers also possess the roles and responsibilities of resolving issues and problems while trying to achieve positive outcomes, with any measures possible, regardless of what the employees or other organizational members might be thinking about it. On the other hand, Alvesson, and Einola (2019) argued that leadership is an effort that individuals practice for directing their actions and behaviors, thus, ensuring the accomplishment of tasks. Leaders are more inclined toward taking care of the employees, but hard work and commitment, use intelligence and analytical skills to maintain tolerance and goodwill of people.

Attitudes and Behaviors Towards Goal Achievement

As stated by Leroy et al., (2018), leaders also believe that amidst the power and political drama, there are only a few people, who are worthy to be properly fulfilling their roles and responsibilities. Leaders tend to improve their skills, knowledge, and competency, thus, gaining control of own self to control the behavior and actions of others, working under them, This further helps inappropriate management of human resources, while aligning with the corporate goals and objectives too. While ensuring a consistent supply of people, who could undertake various responsibilities might constrain the development of great leaders, the presence of great leaders, could weaken the development and potential of managers. Though there are more requirements nowadays, for acquiring great leaders, rather than managers, managerial culture differs largely from the entrepreneurial culture, which constitutes leadership aspects (Andersen et al. 2018). There are differences in ways of motivating individuals among the managers and leaders while the personal history and experiences also differ, which judge the way they tend to think, act and behave at times within the organizations.  Therefore, these are the differences in terms of personality among the manager and leaders.

The attitudes toward the achievement of goals and objectives differ to some extent for the managers and leaders. While managers are found to adopt objective attitudes and focus on the goals and objectives that are regarded as their necessity to sustain as the manager of the company, with certain duties of achieving the goals. On the other hand, leaders are more centered on influencing individual behaviors, promoting the well-being of employees, and at the same time, prioritizing on development of employees (Connelly et al. 2019). Development of employees and promoting growth could help in making them capable and skilled enough to accomplish the goals and objectives, furthermore, ensuring smooth organizational functioning and enhanced workplace efficiency too.  The leaders are also active, rather than being reactive, which allows them to shape ideas and knowledge rather than responding to them unnecessarily. It is always believed that while managers tend to make things done, with whatever procedures they need to implement, the leaders exert influence, which evoked expectations and a positive image, thus, creating a set of objectives, which must be achieved for determining the right direction, where the business moves (Oreg and Berson 2019). The major outcome of this is that the influence created by the leaders creates changes in the behaviors of people and makes them think, about what is required from them to achieve the goals and objectives, as a collaborating unit.

Conceptions of Associated Work

Though the managers and leadership behaviors are a bit different, still managers practice leadership roles, which are sometimes favorable and sometimes unfavorable. The organizational managers tend to view the work procedures as a process to enable the combination of human resources and ideas, thus, establishing strategies and making decisions. Managers tend to evaluate the interests, make strategic plans when issues tend to arise and reduce tension, which manages flexibility of operations while ensuring proper negotiation, bargaining, rewards, punishment, and various forms of coercion too (Pellegrini et al. 2020). To determine the appropriate solution to any issues within the organization, the managers need to coordinate and maintain a proper balance between the views that are opposing. This further has helped in balancing the power and authority of managers to determine solutions, which might even compromise with the conflicting values and beliefs of other organizational members. On the other hand, Hartley (2018) states that the conceptions of work revolving around a leader is entirely different. The leaders prevent any compromising over conflicting values and beliefs, rather indulge everyone to share their respective ideas, thoughts, and opinions, which ensure smooth decision making. While managers limit the choices most of the time and focus on making decisions on their own, the leaders allow for multiple choices, which bring diverse ideas and opinions from people, thus, opening up issues to new options. The leaders also have managed to work in high-risk situations, which allow them to grab any scope and opportunity to determine solutions while at the same time, understand the benefits that could be acquired, which make them trustworthy and much more competent, as considered by the organizational members (Miao, Humphrey, and Qian 2018).  

Considering the fact that managers act as leaders of the organization, often they are unaware of things that the leaders need to do. The managers deal with complex situations as well as enable proper planning, budgeting procedures, clarification of job roles and responsibilities, staffing, measuring performance, and resolving issues and problems too. In case the desired outcomes are not achieved, the managers tend to set goals and objectives accordingly, prioritize operational planning, allocate resources and manage to budget. The managers are also responsible for establishing a structure and then communicating the plan, through reinforcement. The plan is communicated afterward, without much consultation with the staff of the organization, and then a staffing procedure is developed (Raja et al. 2020). This assures allocation of individual roles and responsibilities, thus, determining the best fit between the people and tasks that they need to perform. The organizational managers also develop certain policies, principles, procedures, and systems for monitoring the progress and growth while managing coordination and control. This further ensures monitoring of the results at regular stages, measuring those against the plans set, and prioritizing problem-solving techniques, which remains continuous throughout the strategic planning procedure, involving the organizational growth and development. Thus, from the arguments of Para-González et al. (2018), it is very much clear that managers aim to get the operational results achieved and bring excellence by creating a sense of predictability while managing various procedures and systems. But most importantly, they are dependent upon the performance and activities managed by the employees in performing the job roles and duties effectively, which could be both challenging and rewarding at times.

Leaders, on the other hand, are responsible for producing change, which creates opportunities for future viability while aligning the people with the corporate vision of the organization. The leaders most importantly, communicate with the organizational members and stakeholders, gather their ideas and opinions, and strive to inspire and motivate them throughout the work procedures (Stewart 2019). They are responsible for providing a strategic direction through the establishment of a proper vision and demonstrating its significance to the organizational stakeholders. This not only helps in the development of strategies that make goals and objectives attainable but also helps in coping with the change, which needs to remain constant. The leaders align the human resources, i.e., the people, and communicate the direction with them, thus, facilitating engagement and participation of people, thus, making them understand where they fit perfectly. It has built a lot of commitment of workers and also promoted teamwork and coordination, which is crucial for handling large and complex projects with ease and effectiveness (Weiss et al. 2018). The leaders are somewhat different in terms of creating a motivated workforce when compared with the managers of organizations. Leaders prioritized waving the flag and even allowed their subordinates to speak up with freedom, manage to coach, and empower the employees at every level while providing rewards ad benefits to them as well. It is a major approach toward the achievement of strategic outcomes by positioning the organization in such a manner that it ensures the creation of value and benefits consistently. The leadership behaviors encourage the development of a new direction and strategies have been implemented to enhance organizational capabilities furthermore. It has not only led people to excellence but also has promoted teamwork and collectively achieving corporate goals and objectives too (Buchanan and Huczynski 2019).

One of the major theories that could demonstrate the leadership behaviors and facilitation of change within the organizations. According to Kotter, the leaders not only perform their individual roles ad responsibilities of managing a workforce consisting of employees but also possess the duty to identify and develop the leadership potential of individuals and form key networks, which are major components of leadership initiative. The managers tend to recruit staff and provide necessary training, just to make them capable of performing the tasks that are assigned to them, while in the case of leaders, it is something different (Afsar, Masood, and Umrani 2019). The leaders manage staffing procedures to recruit the candidate with the desired knowledge and skills, develop them, and provide scopes and opportunities for them to lead, undertake risks and learn from failures and even success. Developing this sense to lead and undertake risks at the early stages of a professional career helps in strengthening their skills, knowledge, and expertise. The coaching sessions and mentoring programs are also managed by the leaders to allow the staff makes most of the opportunities, thus, strengthening their skills of leadership and also managing ability. Eliyana and Ma’arif (2019) argue that all these learning scopes are greatly encouraged by a good leader, who broadens the perspectives of individuals, let them speak with freedom, and understands the true meaning of leadership and management. Leadership behaviors, when practiced effectively, also bring additional benefits such as forming a workforce consisting of staff, who are valuable and even valued by the organization, thus, ensuring the organization rises gradually on the strength and potential of the staff.

The transformational theory of leadership has been applied across organizations to focus on the strengthening of the relationship between the leader and followers. The leaders need to be charismatic, inspirational, act as a mentor to encourage and motivate the subordinates and transform the organizational capability. On the contrary, Menzel (2019) states that these kinds of leadership behaviors show motivation by their own ability to encourage the employees and engage them to perform the task collaboratively. The performance of the team has been focused on, along with giving a push to every team member to reach the highest potential quite effectively as well. The contingency theory of leadership is another effective leadership theory that allows leaders to choose the right course of action while considering certain aspects that influence individuals in various situations. With the application of this theory of leadership, there has been a proper balance maintained between the needs of employees, their behaviors, thus, improving leadership potential to judge the needs of followers, analyze that situation, and act accordingly (Connolly, James, and Fertig 2019).   

“Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.”

—Stephen R. Covey (Covey 2011)

Despite the differences in behaviors and styles of both managers and leaders, there are a few major areas where both leadership and management overlap each other. Both leadership and management have been interrelated, according to Luthans, Rosenkrantz, and Hennessey (2019), and they both sometimes perform similar functions and aim to achieve common goals, despite having a different set of skills, knowledge, and working styles. There are multiple situations when leadership behaviors encouraged the management of people, with the focus on achieving long-term future growth for the organization. The management behaviors also performed similar roles by acting as a great leaders. There is no need to overemphasize any one of these, and consider it to be healthy and effective, rather business needs both excellent leaders and brilliant managers, who support visionary leadership and excellent management perspectives. Any one of these must not be judged as superior, rather leader and manager do not essentially make a difference, about the way the organization functions or has been run by any of these individuals. The main thing that needs to be looked upon is better management as well as leadership, which, when combined, could enhance the ability to reach the vision, shared goals and achieve innovation (Moldoveanu and Narayandas 2019). The leader-manager relationship fosters greater collaboration among organizational members, inspires followers, through the creation of trust, loyalty, attracts talent, developing them by mentoring and coaching. As both the individuals share a similar focus and vision to be achieved, combining both their behaviors help in combining their own set of skills and expertise, which anticipate and manage change effectively too (Luthans, Rosenkrantz and Hennessey 2019). Thus, it could be implied that leading of organization has always been crucial for a reliable manager.  

Conclusion

Therefore, it could be very well analyzed that the manager has been responsible for getting things done by the employees and more importantly, communicating the policies, principles, and philosophies of the organization. It has helped in formulating the policies and strategies to improve, thus, streamlining the efficiency of operations and allowing the employees to achieve the key performance indicators, whatever the procedures might be. The hierarchy and structure of the organization determine the manager’s ability to form a relationship with peers and employees of the organization, which represented that a decentralized hierarchy has been followed. While leaders tend to focus more on management and organizing areas, the managers ensure the correct management of everyday operations at both implementation and delivery levels.  Leaders, on the other hand, tend to focus on organizing and management of people and facilitating interpersonal relationships, internally and externally. Not only do the leaders assess the current condition of the organization, but also develop future strategies, according to the information and data presented in reports, from the head of departments. An effective leader strived to enable innovation and prioritize on development of the talent pool through exercises of building a healthy culture within the organization. It has helped in challenging the status quo and never hesitant to take risks, thus, assuring high rewards and benefits to the stakeholders, clients, and also the employees of the organization. Thus, it could be judged that leadership and manager behaviors, both are contrasting approaches to making the employees work in coordination, as a unit and derive organizational efficiency. While leadership has been known for its risk-taking ability, innovation, focus on employee development, and establishing new vision and initiatives, management centered on allocation and controlling resources, thus transforming the organizational vision into reality. We have learned both the leadership and management aspects and also went through the differences, in the context of corporate setup, which favored the chances of both, being equally effective to be the source of inspiration for people, integrity, empathy, and innovation. Thus, it could be concluded that both are not that different, but do share some similar roles and responsibilities, which are needed for an organization to sustain itself.

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