Leadership and Management

Introduction

There's a fundamental difference between leadership and management. Oftentimes, capable managers exhibit poor leadership skills because they fail to understand the relationship between these two concepts. Being a good manager doesn't prefigure being a good leader. Leadership is a philosophy that manifests itself in a way of life, whereas management is an identifiable process. Leadership and management remain two distinctive and complementary systems of action, each with its own function and characteristic activities. In a rapidly changing and frequently threatening social and political environment, where all aspects of higher education are being questioned--from sources of financial support to the character, quality and efficiency of institutional activities--it is timely to examine the managerial framework within which the purposes of higher education are realized.

In commercial organisations, the distinctions between management and leadership are not always obvious, since the roles of manager and leader are generally combined. Leadership is often taken to be synonymous with `headship'' or formal position at the apex of an organisation or unit and both roles are closely associated with other forms of social influence such as power and authority.( teamtechnology.co.uk, 1) However, the assumption that management and leadership are either coterminous or else that one is part of the other, has been challenged in the past decade although agreement is lacking as to whether the roles can be complementary in the same person or are possibly in conflict.

Main Body

One can see a clear distinctions between a manager--who maintains systems, relies on controls, has a short range view, accepts the status guo--and a leader, who energises, motivates, has a long range and even visionary view, and challenges and changes the status quo. It is difficult to see how such different roles can be combined in the same person.

In professional organisations the leadership function has to ...