Distinction Between Leadership and Management, Essay Example

Introduction

Leadership and management have been in the focus of scholarly attention for many decades; the reason for this is in the elusiveness of the discussed concepts, as well as their relationship and interaction within various fields of human activity. The traditional scientific thought regarded leadership as an inseparable part of the managerial position. However, the growing body of research shows that managers may not always be leaders, and even in case they are, managers often show leadership qualities to a various degree of success. In addition, there are many natural leaders whose status is achieved not by holding the managerial position implying the authoritative, organizational right to manage others. Therefore, the issue of concern for the present paper pertains to identifying the nature of such concepts as management and leadership, and outlining the prevalent differences they have, both in theory and in business practice.

The widely spread opinion about the nature of leadership and management can be found both in dictionaries and expressions of those coming across managerial and leadership practices in their lives. It concerns the nature of leadership and management as such: the latter is a position acquired as a result of educational and workplace effort, and implies managing and leading others for the sake of achieving the organizational objectives. Leadership is a concept of an individual nature, often predetermined by personal qualities, genetics, specific traits of character etc. However, there are inclinations to consider only leaders apt to take managerial positions, whereas leaders are thought to be willing and able to handle jobs of such kind. It is nonetheless not clear what comes first – the managerial position that urges the individual to develop his/her leadership qualities, or the leadership incentive to strive for the managerial position. These relationships between two concepts are to be explored and clarified on the basis of literature review and accounts existing in the modern period of time.

The Concept of Leadership

A leader is a person who is able to inspire people and lead them in the chosen direction, both in work and in other fields of human activity (Stearns, 2010). The reason for leadership being such a welcome trait in managers is that leaders are inherently capable of not only making people do what they want, but providing them with internal incentives for doing so. Stearns (2010) gives the following characterization to leaders at the workplace:

“This is the type of person who demonstrates an ability to set goals, plan, make clearly defined decisions, and to communicate them to others with such enthusiasm that followers respond because of respect, confidence, understanding, and a willingness to follow their direction” (Stearns, 2010, p. 28).

As one can see from the present definition, the qualities of a leader mainly derive from the personal qualities of an individual, and they are appreciated at the personal level as well. The majority of people cannot give a clear definition to what they expect from a leader, or how they understand that the individual is an actual leader – most respondents judge leadership at the level of intuition and subjective feelings (Fairholm & Fairholm, 2008). Therefore, the need for research in the field of who a leader is, how he or she reveals the leadership traits in activities, judgments, or words, and when leadership turns out effective is evident.

Historically, the prime nature of leadership was identified on the physical and psycho-social level, establishing the most general characteristic of a leader as a strong personality (Fairholm & Fairholm, 2008). Continuing research focused on identification of such leadership traits as energy, health, appearance, fluency of speech, initiative, dominance, originality, initiative, persistence etc. The deeper and more intense research appeared, the more accompanying features of a leader were identified, including the social background, task-related characteristics, biosocial activity etc. (Fairholm & Fairholm, 2008).

One of the crucial preconditions for a person to become a leader is the possession of charisma (Conger, 2002). Charisma is seen as a necessary factor in both attracting followers and retaining them over a sustained period of time. It is now considered a truly leadership competence, and is a vital part of the leader’s ability to be a strategic decision-maker. It is not limited by the conventional vision of a charismatic person as ‘charming’, as the concept is much deeper and more serious in reality. Some researchers underestimate the notion of ‘charisma’ in leadership studies, but Conger (2002) poses vital importance on it, calling charisma one of the three distinct types of leadership rationalization.

The word ‘charisma’ has an ancient origin, and it was used to define the God’s gift of prophecy, healing, and wisdom. Those possessing a charisma were respected and cherished as divinities, which resulted in their prestige status in the society. The term was first used by the modern researchers in the 20^th century when max Weber borrowed the term to identify the specific type of leadership based on the personal characteristics (Conger, 2002). The types of leadership Weber outlined included the traditional pattern of authority deriving from the customs in a particular society, i.e. the clan of monarchs, the ruling family or the dynasty inheriting the throne etc., and the rational-legal type based on the existing laws and regulations governing the process of leaders’ election. Charismatic leadership appeared the third type of leadership that did not find any rational explanation by the rules and codes of a society, as it was based on the pure appreciation of the individuals’ qualities and assigning the role of leaders to them on the basis of those qualities (Conger, 2002).

According to Conger (2002), it is still unclear what processes govern the human choice of charismatic leaders as their guides, and how people identify the presence of necessary qualities in individuals possessing a charisma. In addition, the combination of features creating a charisma in a human being is also not clear, since charismatic features are unique in every distinct leader observed. However, it is possible to identify the process by which a charismatic leader may successfully execute his or her leadership activities. In the opinion of Conger (2002), the truly charismatic leader has to assess the environment in which the work will be further conducted, create and communicate the future vision of the task, and then achieve the vision with the help of devoted and motivated employees.

The Concept of Management

Management is closely related to the essence of leadership, as it implies making strategic and tactical decisions in the everyday working practice. According to definition of Stearns (2010) citing the Webster dictionary, a manager is the one who manages the activities of people in a firm, company or institution, or a household. More often, it is an appointed position that is created by the force outside the manager’s competence, and it demands certain qualities, functions and responsibilities from its holder (Stearns, 2010). A manager is thus required to take a leadership role, no matter whether the management model is authoritative or participatory (Rothwell & Kazanas, 1999).

The procedure of becoming a manage r is also a subject for considering the difference between management and leadership. Stearns (2010) notes that there is a set of ways an individual becomes a manager – these may be the incidental and circumstantial conditions, the personal willingness, educational direction and specificity, and the organizational changes occurring within a particular organization. As a result of any of these processes, the individual acquires the position and masters the qualities needed for conducting the work on that position. However, the key finding here is that not all managers are leaders, and even occupying a managerial position at the top management level they may not get closer to the enthusiastic, inspirational, naturally followed position of a leader within a group (Stearns, 2010).

As it comes from the present review, managers are implied to have leadership skills, but they do not necessarily have them. It is true that leadership is a welcome quality in any manager due to his/her responsibility for managing people, making decisions, implementing them into the work of the company and monitoring the results. However, a manager turns out to be the key figure in the arrangement of the organizational structure, and his/her activities may often be more prescriptive and authoritative than advisory and participatory. A manager may control and guide the activities of the entrusted group even without the enthusiasm and attractiveness leadership would give to him/her. However, the result of such cooperation may possess a low level of effectiveness, which will inevitably be revealed in the performance of the group.

Management is also viewed from the standpoint of the trait theory at times, similarly to leadership. There are people who have managerial skills embedded in them, both from nature and in the process of education. There are some disparities in the trait approach to management because it fails to take into consideration the basic cultural, demographical and ethnic differences, but in general it favors the approach of the natural predisposition to success in management.

Distinctions and Commonalties of Management and Leadership

The major part of findings on the distinction between managers and leaders derives from the stipulated functions that managers have to perform at the workplace. Firstly, it is the function of planning: every manager is organizationally responsible for stipulating the company’s objectives, and for defining strategies that will best suit them. Secondly, a manager is responsible for organizing; he or she should define the se of actions and resources needed to be allocated for the sake of achieving the stipulated goal. It is also the manager who coordinates the work or decides on the coordination procedures that will suit the goal completion purpose best (Gold, Thorpe, & Mumford, 2010). Thirdly, a manager should perform the function of communicating; it involves the provision of proper information to the group members subordinate to him or her on their responsibilities and tasks in the process of objective accomplishment. This function also implies taking all possible effort to create the supportive working environment in which employees would be motivated and eager to complete the task in the best possible way. Finally, the function of controlling is also the prime responsibility of managers; they need to monitor and adjust the employees’ activities in the way that would ensure the best result for the organization (Gold, Thorpe, & Mumford, 2010).

These functions are purely prescriptive and authoritative, enabling the manager to use his or her institutional responsibilities and powers to make employees complete the assigned tasks. However, the stage of communicating may lack leadership incentives for employees, thus making them unwilling to work better, which usually results in poor results and motivation. The prime distinction between a manager and a leader is that the former makes people do something, and the latter makes people want to do the task because of their personal respect, attraction and fascination with the leader guiding them.

A peculiar feature of informality making a leader of a manager is the style of communication he or she is able to establish in the working environment entrusted to him or her. The formal, institutionalized and limited communication a manager may establish between him or her and the employees is a great challenge on the way of leadership. A truly charismatic, strong and attractive leader should be able to provide the informality, humor, and understanding in his/her patterns of communication with employees. In other way management remains only the authoritative, hierarchical position of a detached supervisor, and not a leader.

The use of power is also researched under the managerial angle – the source of managerial power is hierarchical, while the leader possesses the power over people due to the internal force attracting them. The visionary, inspirational, and enthusiastic personality is the key to growing from a formal manager to a leader, and the institutional power is viewed as less involving that the personal strength, might, and reputation. Therefore, the core differences between management and leadership have to be looked for in the field of power roots and the attitudes managers are able to establish in the organizational environment entrusted for them to manage.

Conclusion

As it comes from the present research paper, the concepts of management and leadership are very close, and the people supposed to play one of the roles are also promoted to obtain proficiency in the other one as well. However, it becomes clear that not all managers are capable of becoming leaders, since management initially presupposes the formal power relationships absent in the relation of a leader to his followers. The head-subordinate relations in the management lens are substituted by the leader-follower relationships from the point of view of leadership. Therefore, there is much concern over searching for a true combination of both managerial and leadership skills at any workplace, as they are seen as the secret of success for the majority of business environments at the present period of time.

Becoming a manager is possible from the angle of educational efforts and promotional changes; however, a leader is still more of a natural category of people with some inborn characteristics called a charisma, which makes him or her appealing to the followers. The mechanism of charisma’s effect on employees is still a vague one, but research is continued to realize the intrinsic drives making some people follow and obey others. Leadership is much stronger than management since there is much more personal power and authority in a leader than in a formally appointed managerial executive. Consequently, closer ties in the studies of leadership and management have to be undertaken to agree on the objectives of building the competitive advantage of managers who are able to successfully develop the leadership skills in themselves, thus ensuring a much more positive working environment and the higher performance of the entrusted group.

References

Conger, J.A. (2002). The Road to Leadership: Competence or Charisma? In Leadership and management in the information age. New York, NY: I.B. Tauris, pp. 32-48.

Fairholm, M.R., & Fairholm, G.W. (2008). Understanding Leadership Perspectives: Theoretical and Practical Approaches. New York: Springer Science.

Gold, J., Thorpe, R., & Mumford, A. (2010). Handbook of leadership and management development. (5^th ed.). Burlington, VT: Gower Publishing, Ltd.

Rothwell, W.J., & Kazanas, H.C. (1999). Building in-house leadership and management development programs: their creation, management, and continuous improvement. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood Publishing Group.

Stearns, J. (2010). My Observations Of, and Experiences with Leadership in Management. Bloomington, IN: Xlibris Corporation.