MANAGEMENT AS LEADERSHIP

To What Extent And In What Ways Is Management The Same As Leadership?

To What Extent And In What Ways Is Management The Same As Leadership?

Introduction

When you think of leadership, the ideas of power, authority, and influence may come to mind. You may think of the actions of effective leaders in accomplishing important goals. Leadership is any process of leaders influencing followers. A leader, sometimes likened to a magnet, is one to whom others look for guidance. Influence is the ability or capacity to get another person to do or believe X rather than Y. One vital source of influence is formal authority to command, held for example by business executives. An individual not possessing any formal authority may acquire moral influence equivalent to informal authority through persuasion, example, or ideas. Varying sources and means of influence, together with the morality of ends and means of influence, are key dimensions of leadership. Where control of important resources overlaps with formal or informal authority, it is an aspect of leadership. Much of the material above has focused on the formal roles of executives and managers in organisations. There is continuing debate in the literature concerning the appropriate relationship between “leadership” and “management.” One reason for the debate is that an executive or manager may not be effective at leading, while leadership may arise elsewhere in an organisation or community. Another reason for the debate is that the prescriptive theory of leadership has tended to emphasize vision and direction setting as inspirational and motivational tools, in contrast to the arguably more mundane tasks of management, such as budgeting, personnel evaluation, problem solving, and so forth. However this study proves that leadership is part of management and hence they share some similarities.

Analysis

Robert Danzig, who rose to general manager of the Hearst Corp., argues that management “skills” can be learned but that leadership “traits” are inherent qualities that can be polished to “powers.” He lists first charisma and then perseverance, followed by seven other traits not necessarily in any order of priority: character, energy, enthusiasm, innovation, inspiration (i.e., ability to motivate others), passion, and quality. Norman Augustine, commenting that there is no single style of effective leadership, identifies seven common “qualities”: competence, courage, inspiration, integrity, perseverance, selflessness, and vision.

One school of thought holds that leadership is quite different from management. In a business context, the CEO leads; the COO manages. General Colin Powell, ...