MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP

Management and Leadership

Management and Leadership

Introduction

Management and leadership sound as if they go together, but they actually serve two different purposes and responsibilities in an organization. Management is a position of authority, they tell what needs to be done, and make sure that they are done correctly and in a timely manner. A successful manager must be able to plan, delegate, organize measure, and control both the task and their employees.

Management is the direction and controlling of a group of people through coordination and harmonization for the accomplishment of a goal or goals that are beyond individualized efforts. To achieve this act, managements encompass deployment and manipulation of human, finance, technology and natural resources. The act of management can also be effectively referred to the individual or group of individual who are involved with management work.

Leadership is the art of influencing individuals through the provision of purpose, direction and motivation for the purpose of improvement and mission accomplishment within organizations. In an institution like the army, the role of leadership defined as the means for getting people to do what is required through methods that achieve the two purposes of “operations” and “improvement”. We can therefore deduce the influencing is not just a matter of passing orders but more importantly, it is the setting up of examples with every action taken and word spoken while on duty or off duty. Importantly it has to be noted that way in which leadership qualities are communicated can set the prevalent positive or negative precedents of any organization(David, 2003).

In this essay we shall consider the example of “Wal-Mart” as a case study to see how in this organization the roles of “management” and “leadership” play out in their normal business operation and what parts are played specifically for its success. An observation to be made here that leadership members can also be inclusive of CEOs, Chairman, Directors and other high position holding personnel placed at positions of importance. All the leaders are therefore responsible for the direct outcome of the organizations in terms of the profits and benefit achievements that are achieved.

Background to Management and Leadership

In an organization like Wal-Mart, the leadership facet of management is one of the many assets that a successful manager must have to maximize the output of organizations through administrative measures such as organizing, planning directing, controlling and having the correct and appropriate number of staff. Therefore, a manager can not simply be a leader if he does not have the formal authority to be effective for qualitative initiatives without the support of the senior management to play the part of an impacting role model. There are also instances where leaderships are not required when for example motivated groups and individuals many find the roles of leaders as a dominating factor. This fact proves that leaderships may not be essential at times and therefore can be considered just as an asset within organizations(Bolman, 2003).

Differences between Management and Leadership

The difference between the Wal-Mart managements and leaderships ...