Leadership vs. Management

Leadership vs. Management

Introduction

Leadership and management is the most important aspect of any organization in moving towards development. Although the words management and leadership exist in the same context, they are two very different concepts. Leadership can be an asset to management but unfortunately not all managers have leadership abilities (Ricketts 2009). Management is about directing, supervising, or giving orders to employees, while leadership is about being able to envision a better reality and communicating that vision to others in a way that inspires them to achieve that vision. Management's job is to achieve the visions of leadership.

Discussion

Leadership

There are several definitions available to define leadership but there are certain features that comprise those definitions. These elements are; influence is involved in leadership, it happens collectively and achievement of goals is necessary. The implementation of leadership process may differ but these components always play an important role in its execution.

Apart from these components, certain factors also describe the nature of behavior of leaders. Leadership is divided into two dimensions i.e. initiating structure and consideration. The behavior to direct the organization, serving to define and achieve its goals and also defining the actions that can be followed by others, falls under the initiating structure of leadership. On the other hand dimension of consideration is defined by maintaining good relations. A leader should be social, accessible, friendly and good listener. Leader always seeks the ways to motivate his followers' so that they keep moving forward and be productive. That is why leaders always have to be involved with their followers and make sure that they are content enough with their every need.

Management

Management is to execute, administrate, and supervise the direction of certain group or organization. The essential features of management are defined by Theodre Levitt (1976) with a stress on control and rationality. According to him process of management comprises rational evaluation of a situation and selecting goals and purposes systematically; development of efficient strategies to achieve those goals; organization of necessary resources; the balanced plan; direction, organization and controlling the activities necessary to accomplish the chosen purposes along with the provision of motivation and rewards to the human resources. A manager is said to be the problem solver no matter his energies are used in organizing, planning, or managing human resources.

Leadership vs. Management

The debate over the controversy of leadership and management is continued for a very long time. Most of the time, it is supposed that anyone at manager level is a leader but not every manager workout leadership. Similarly, there is a concept that every leader has to be a manager but often it has been observed that leadership is exercised by those who are not at the position of management. Many scholars argue that despite of overlapping concept of leadership and management both processes are not synonymous at any level (Bass, 2010). Leadership and management process involve different kind of activities and functions (Yukl, 2010).

The very first argument over their differences was given by Abraham Zaleznik in ...