Different people have different views regarding leadership and management. Some of the individuals treat them as synonymous terms while some of them considered them as different. It can be assumed that all managers act as the leaders but it is not is because some managers do not perform the activities that are performed by the leaders (Bratton and Gold, 2012). Thus, the controversy between the similarity and difference between management and leadership is still continuing. This essay talks about the fact that leadership is different from management in many ways. Most of the authors and the scholars suggest that both these terms may overlaps each other but there are many differences between them which cannot be ignored. In some of the contexts, leadership and management is observed to be at extremes which prove that it is wring to make the statement that leadership is similar to management (Dexter and Prince, 2007). Leaders and the managers have different and unique set of duties and responsibilities with them along with some goals. In order to achieve those goals, some of their functions get overlaps with each other because both of them have the power to lead some of their followers. Earlier the organization does not make any focus on differentiating the morals of leaders and managers at the workplace but with the modernization in the organizations structure, the firms have started differentiating the roles of both the leaders and the manager. This is because today’s firms require effective leadership as well as more effective management (Edwards, Schedlitzki, Turnbull and Gill, 2015). This can be because of the increasing complexity of functions and culture in the organization that is followed these days. The article below provides an argument of the differences between leadership and management with support of some of the statement and definition given by different authors and scholars on the topic.
Management and leaders have different personalities to conduct their duties. As far as the managerial culture is considered, it is based on control. A manager shows the personality of a problem solver. He is the one who asks about the problems that are faced by the employees on regular basis so that he can find out a way to resolve those issues. Leadership in this sense is simply an affair of direction to perform a particular task (Finkelstein, Hambrick and Cannella, 2009). Managers need not to show any heroism to manage the people at any level. They just need to take intelligent decision according to the situation and the capability of the employees in the organization. If the personality qualities of the mangers are considered, it has been analyzed that mangers need to be emotionally distant. It is not necessary for the mangers to be emotionally connected with the employees because it may hinder their work to manage the employees. They need to be expert minded. This means that mangers need to be the one who can take out the solution for the immediate success of the issue and the mangers concentrates more on achieving the goals of the organization by hook or crook (Kotter, 2008). They have to amend the things in such a way so that they can make use of the resources available to the optimum extent. Managers and leaders have different attitude towards their goals. This is because both have different approaches to achieve the goals. Managers are impersonal towards goals achievement and the necessities of the organization act as the basis of managerial goals. Leaders have different approach towards goal achievement. Leaders have personal approach towards their goals (Lencioni, 2010). That means they try to achieve their goals by making binds with their followers. This is because the goals of leadership are not merely related to the achievement of organizational goals, while their goals are dependent on developing their followers to achieve their personal goals along with their organizational goals.
There are different elements on the basis of which the leadership and management comparison can be done. Both the leaders and the mangers have the role to direct their followers but both of them follow different approaches to make those directions. Managers make the plan and budget regarding the goals and the direct the employee according to the plan (Lunenburg, 2011). They used to keep their eyes on the bottom line. They have the targets and the deadline which needs tie b completed in any condition. On the other hand, mangers also have to play the role of director and need to direct their followers but the leaders have the strategy to create vision among the minds of the followers in order to achieve the goals. They try to develop that skill in the followers to recreate those visions in their minds. Leaders have long term approach to resolve the issues rather than managing things for achieving short term goals (Nahavandi, 2016). The managers tend to organize the things in a way that helps them to use optimum from the resources. They direct and control the employees who work under them and also create a limitation for time to work. This is because they work according to the set plans. Leaders on the other side try to reduce the boundaries for the followers so as to motivate them to develop creativity among their work (Nijstad, Berger-Selman and De Dreu, 2014). They create values for them and help their followers to grow.
When any team works in an organization, they form bonds with each other. That bond should have the basis just like every relationship. Relationship of mangers with the employees focuses on the objects such as increase in sales, developing and enhancing the sales activities etc. managers have powers and they use it like a boss (Rowitz, 2010). They delegate duties to their employees which need to be fulfilled by them at any cost. The overall relation between the manger and the employees is based on power and position. There is a formal relationship that exists between the managers and the employees because of the difference in hierarchy and the basis on which their relationship is farmed. Good leaders always try to have personal relation with their followers. The main focus of their relationship is inspiring and motivating the followers to perform the particular task rather than delegating duties to them. They provide more freedom to the followers to choose the task according to their capabilities nada los develop the skills in them if they fails to perform any task (Singh, 2008). They have a personal power over the followers that mean they have informal relationship with each other and can discuss personal issues. This allows the leaders to penetrate into the follower’s life and this helps the leaders to make vision and strategies for that particular follower in order to develop him personally and professionally.
Management is full of stability while leadership is full of challenges. Mangers try to manage the things according to what is available in term of resources on the other hand leaders try to create challenges for their followers so that they can learn new skills. Different authors have defined leadership and management in different ways (Solomon, Costea and Nita, 2016). Bennis explained that leaders are the one who always try to do right things on the other hand managers are the one who makes the things right. John Kotter is another author that describes leadership as the process that helps in coping with the changes that occur on the environment while he described management as the process of coping with the complexities in the functions. Management is exercising the practices that are based on control and directions. Hierarchy is the most important part of managerial functions as it requires the administration and supervisory position in order to take managerial decision (Van Dierendonck, Stam, Boersma, De Windt and Alkema, 2014). It is not necessary that if a person is managing a department, he has all the knowledge about that field. This is because mangers require the skills to manage the things according to the available resources rather than teaching the employees about the academic process to conduct the functions or tasks. Managers allow focus on task and are task oriented. They don’t focus on developing the employees at individual level and provide them the knowledge limited to what is required to complete the task. It is not the concern of a manager to grow the employees at individual level. Leadership is the more complex phenomenon then management. This is because leaders need to develop the feeling of trust among their followers before leading them. As far as the types of leadership are discussed, the most important type of leadership is transformational leadership (Zhu, Newman, Miao and Hooke, 2013). In this leadership, the leaders have to transform their followers and make them believe what the leaders believe. This is a very difficult task as it requires the leaders to develop a relation of trust among the followers; this is because the followers can only follow the leaders if they trust the leaders. Suppose, the sales team of the organization has been ordered to increase the sales this month by 5%, the managers provide the plan through which the sales executive can increase the sales but at the same time the leaders help them in developing the skills that will help the executives to increase the sales. This price may take some time but help the employees to a long term. This clearly suggests that management is the short term process while leadership is a long term process that helps in developing the skills among the individual that will helps them for long term in their employment period. Managers are to be characterized as the people who are smart, confident, has the ability to find solution rapidly, controls the situation, delegate the duties and focus on the things. Leaders have been characterized as the people who have the ability to influence others, inspire otters and motivate other to perform well. Leaders are the one who are also smart and confident but at the sometime should have the emotional side that can helps them in understanding the inner side of the followers. Mangers treat every employee equally but leaders have to look inwards of the followers and have to develop the skills accordingly.
After the analyzing the articles and the definition of different author regarding leadership and management, it has been identified that the roles of leaders and managers overlaps each other but the approaches of performing those roles are very different for both. Leaders are more into inspirational process to motivate the employees while managers are more tasks oriented and do not focus on individual development of the people. The growth of the organization is the main aim of the managers while leaders focus on individual development of the followers. Management is considered as the aspect of power and position while leaders have the aspects of relationship. Managers and leaders both are present in the organization to deals with the employees or the team but the goals of managers and leaders are significantly different. To conclude, it can be said that every organization require leadership as well as management. This is because the role played by leaders and managers complements each other and is required to run the organization. The organizational process can be successful only when the organization is experiencing strong leadership along with strong management. In order to deal with today’s dynamic environment, the organizations need to have leaders so that they can cope with the challenges that came into their way. The organizations also have to deal with the managerial challenges. These challenges are related to the smooth functioning of the organization. Leaders can develop the skills but the managers are also required in the organization to align the functions and the processes of the organizations.
References:
Bratton, J. and Gold, J., 2012. Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave Macmillan.
Dexter, B. and Prince, C., 2007. Turning managers into leaders: assessing the organizational impact of leadership development. Strategic Change, 16(5), pp.217-226.
Edwards, G., Schedlitzki, D., Turnbull, S and Gill, R., 2015. Exploring power assumptions in the leadership and management debate. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 36(3), 328-343.
Finkelstein, S., Hambrick, D.C. and Cannella, A.A., 2009. Strategic leadership: Theory and research on executives, top management teams, and boards. Oxford University Press, USA.
Kotter, J.P., 2008. Force for change: How leadership differs from management. Simon and Schuster. Northouse, P.G., 2012. Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage.
Lencioni, P.M., 2010. Overcoming the five dysfunctions of a team: A field guide for leaders, managers, and facilitators (Vol. 16). John Wiley & Sons.
Lunenburg, F.C., 2011. Leadership versus management: a key distinction–at least in theory. International Journal of Management, Business, and Administration, 14(1), pp.1-4.
Mintzberg, H., 2009. Managing. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Nahavandi, A., 2016. The Art and Science of Leadership -Global Edition. Pearson.
Nijstad, B.A., Berger-Selman, F. and De Dreu, C.K., 2014. Innovation in top management teams: Minority dissent, transformational leadership, and radical innovations. European journal of work and organizational psychology, 23(2), pp.310-322.
Rowitz, L., 2010. Management and leadership. Journal of Public Health Management and Practice, 16(2), pp.174-176.
Singh, S.K., 2008. Role of leadership in knowledge management: a study. Journal of knowledge management, 12(4), pp.3-15.
Solomon, I.G., Costea, C. and Nita, A.M., 2016. Leadership versus management in public organizations. Economics, Management and Financial Markets, 11(1), p.143.
Bush, T., 2008. From management to leadership: semantic or meaningful change?. Educational management administration & leadership, 36(2), pp.271-288.
Van Dierendonck, D., Stam, D., Boersma, P., De Windt, N. and Alkema, J., 2014. Same difference? Exploring the differential mechanisms linking servant leadership and transformational leadership to follower outcomes. The Leadership Quarterly, 25(3), pp.544-562.
Zhu, W., Newman, A., Miao, Q. and Hooke, A., 2013. Revisiting the mediating role of trust in transformational leadership effects: Do different types of trust make a difference?. The Leadership Quarterly, 24(1), pp.94-105.
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