LEADERSHIP Vs MANAGEMNET

‘Leadership and management’ are they really two different terms or do they mean the same? This is a common question that must have lingered in the minds of all the people. Many of them say it’s quite similar but some others see them as separate and define them with reasons (teamtechnology, 1994).

According to CLAWSON “leadership is about managing energy, first in yourself and then in those around you”(clawson, 2009).

Leadership is when an individual persuade the group of people to lead or achieve a common goal or a common objective and it is achieved by mutual understanding, cooperation and unified performance. Leaders encourages and guide others to attain the precise goal (preservearticles, 2012).

Like Paul Hawken stated “Good management is the art of making problems so interesting and their solutions so constructive that everyone wants to get to work and deal with them” (goodreads, 2014).

Management is making people work to achieve the goal and objectives by using the recourses economically and successfully. The main function of management is to fulfil the choice of stakeholders. The most significant feature of the management consist of planning, organizing, staffing, controlling and problem solving (managementinnovations, 2008).

 

 

Debates and researches have been carried out around the world to understand the meaning and the correlation between leadership and management.  Many differences and similarities have been stated to describe them. Some of the major differences are that a leader is the head who leads the people that works for the success of an organisation whereas a manger controls or manages only a few people or a group of people in that organisation to attain a particular goal. The personality of a leader will have that charisma to inspire and brilliance to influence, motivate and lead the individuals to achieve success. While a manager’s character is defined as the one who is formal, strong willed, analytical and has that controlling authority to produce an outcome or a result. The approach of a leader and a manager to the risk and task involved is entirely different. Leaders are usually high risk takers and have a good level of imagination and their decision making skill is mostly careful planning facilitating any kind of work. Whereas the managers are exactly the opposite, they avoid risk at all the levels possible. They are often referred to as ‘under control problem solvers’ since they involve themselves and create strategies, ideas and methods to solve the problem smoothly. Hence we say leaders are ‘followed by people’ naturally on the other hand the managers have their ‘own subordinates’ under them(Diffen, 2012).

As said above both leader and manager have a totally different style of dealing with the people. According Peter Drucker  “Leadership is doing the right things; management is doing things right”(Diffen, 2012). The management style is considered to be transactional i.e. “telling style” where the manager orders and the subordinates obeys and get paid a minimum amount of salary and other benefits. In case when the things go wrong and the work encounters failure, the subordinates alone are blamed and punished for the failure. Whereas, when it comes to leadership a leader has a transformational style i.e. “selling style”. Here the leader convince or sells his mission to his followers and motivate them to achieve his vision. And the leader himself will stand out if something goes wrong and doesn’t blame his followers. Most often the leaders inspire and transform his people to be amazing leaders in some way or the other in the future.

Coming to the present scenario where diversity grows in an organisation the demand for management and leadership are altering. The style of leadership and management may differ depending up on the situations. Managing and leading has its own strong and weak points, so one cannot conclude which one is better or ideal way of approach at certain situations. An ideal style must be flexible hence cannot be pulled off in a single style. So as the Chartered Management Institute (2013) suggests “the best approach may vary according to circumstances and individual characteristics”. I totally agree with what CMI has stated. I totally agree with what CMI has stated. The style in which an organization accomplishes its target may differ depending up on the existing condition and individual traits hence at times a person has to carry off both the roles, as a manager and a leader to be in control of the situation faced by an organization.

 

 

As an employee in an organization, I would like to be led than being managed by a person and its only because I rather prefer to be understood and inspired by leader than be controlled and all bossy under a manager. I believe in what Ross Perot once said “Lead and inspire people. Don’t try to mange and manipulate people. Inventories can be managed but people must be lead”. So in short to be motivated and learn things from a true leader, who is not worried to get his hands dirty under situations that involves risk and lead the way and work alongside with his team can be considered as a blessing to an employee. I would like to be led by such passionate leaders.

 

References:

 

Teamtechnology.(1994) Leadership Success Factors; [online] available from <http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/leadership/management/overview/>; [Accessed: 18 June 2014]

 

Preservearticles.(2012) Short Essay On Leadership; [online]available from < http://www.preservearticles.com/2012021323091/short-essay-on-leadership.html>; [Accessed: 18 June 2014]

 

Goodreads.(2014) Quotes About Management; [online] available from  < http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/management>;  [Accessed: 18 June 2014]

 

Managementinnovations.(2008) Define Management & Its Functions; [online] available from <http://managementinnovations.wordpress.com/2008/12/03/define-management-its-functions/>; [Accessed: 18 June 2014]

 

Diffen.(2012)Leadership Vs Management; [online] available from <http://www.diffen.com/difference/Leadership_vs_Management>; [Accessed: 18 June 2014]

 

Changingminds.(2013)Leadership Vs Management; [online] available from <http://changingminds.org/disciplines/leadership/articles/manager_leader.htm&gt;; [Accessed: 18 June 2014]