Leadership vs Management - is there a difference - Research Paper Example

Leadership and Management Are Different Practices Different people assume a composite perspective of leadership and management (Kotter, 2013); however, the analyses highlight different views of the two roles since leadership entails providing vision, strategy and pioneering transformational change within the organization. Contrariwise, management entails the daily managerial practices of planning, controlling as well as monitoring, in pursuit of organizational goals and objectives (Svensson & Wood, 2005).

These views are consistent with Kotter’s view that specific tasks of leaders and managers are nearly opposite in nature; while management seeks to argument order and stability to achieve consistency, and the smooth flow of operations, leadership seeks to initiate constructive change and motion. Effective leaders always seek to bring about continuous adaptive change, to take the organizations to higher levels of performance in a context of the tumultuous business environment. Organizations need to have both leaders and managers for them to function effectively because these two roles are complementary (Berendt, Christofi, Kasibhatla, Malindretos & Maruffi, 2012), while leaders provide direction in relation to the big picture and vision of the organization, managers are responsible for effective implementation of that vision.

In other words, managers provide the operational structures that see to it that the vision is achieved while the leaders provide inspiration and motivation that keeps the organizational workforce fired up to achieve the big picture. This has been captured in the first analysis, which details how the manager constantly engages with the workforce thereby establishing strong relationships based on trust and loyalty; consequently, this leader transforms his workforce into followers. There is a sharp distinction between a managerial and leadership culture within the organization; whereas the former focuses on rationality and control, the latter emphasizes intuition and freedom of thought, which unleashes creative potential.

The first analysis also indicates that the manager prefers certainty and clear task structures because they promote not just efficiency but also confidence; this explains the delegation of roles and tasks to people with ability to handle them. The second analysis highlights the function of mentorship, which is a core aspect of leadership, unlike management; the third analysis also emphasizes coaching as a key function of leadership only that this coaching has more to do with skills than motivation or inspiration of workers.

Managers do not require any genius or heroism, but they must be intelligent, hardworking, persistent, tolerant, analytical and tough-minded (Nienaber, 2010). Often managers have very impersonal attitudes towards organizational goals since they are inspired by the history and culture of the organization; contrariwise, leaders adopt a very personal and active attitude towards goals. The fourth analysis mentions flexibility as well as job distribution and continuous feedback for promotion of efficiency in the flow of work; the management’s work is to ensure there is constant information to keep the organization functioning effectively.

Instead of reacting to ideas, leaders actively shape the ideas, thereby greatly influencing moods and evoking expectations as well as certain images. Consequently, leaders motivate certain desires and objectives thereby significantly altering how people think about not just what they desire, but also what they can do and what should be done (Zalenik, 1992). The fact that change within the organization is almost inevitable, mentorship is essential to prepare individuals for the paradigm shift to prevent burnout while enabling a smooth transition from the status quo to the new.

ReferencesZalenik, A. (1992). Managers and Leaders: Are They Different? Harvard Business Review.Kotter, J.P. (2013). Management Is (Still) Not Leadership. Retrieved from: http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/01/management-is-still-not-leadership/Nienaber, H. (2010). Conceptualisation of management and leadership. Management Decision, 48(5), 661-675. Svensson, G., & Wood, G. (2005). The serendipity of leadership effectiveness in management and business practices. Management Decision, 43(7), 1001-1009.

Berendt, C. J., Christofi, A., Kasibhatla, K. M., Malindretos, J., & Maruffi, B. (2012). Transformational leadership: Lessons in management for today. International Business Research, 5(10), 227-232.