Is Leadership and Management the Same or Different - Essay Example

? Is leadership and management the same of different? Introduction The difference between management and leadership is an interesting issue for discussion. Very often these two concepts are interchanged. A differentiation between management and leadership was made in the middle of 80s. Until that period these two concepts were considered to be the same. In the modern business world it is very important to know ‘who is who’ in order to move to success with exact intentions and knowledge. In this research we would claim that leadership and management are two different concepts though their functions are directed on organizational success. The question is worth-discussing, so this work will try to define who leaders and managers are and what are their tasks through the history of leadership and management beginning from 80th till the formation of modern approach. Leaders and managers: who are they? One of the simplest approaches to differentiation of management and leadership was presented by Prof. John Kotter in his book “A Force for Change”. “The purpose of leadership is seen in bringing about movement and useful change and the purpose of management is to guarantee stability, consistency, order and efficiency” (Kotterman, 2006). Both, leadership and management are important for success of any organization. From definition suggested by Kotter it is clearly seen that it is not only possible to interchange these concepts, but it should be mentioned that these concepts define quite different things: management is for stability, leadership is for change. Moreover, it is quite relevant to note that managers and leaders can be people from the same class. A very interesting explanation of management and leadership is given in the book “Leaders: The Strategies for Taking Charge” (1985): “Managers are people who do things right and leaders are people who do the right thing” (Fairholm 1998, p. 17). This phrase is often used but it is hard for non-professionals to differentiate between managers and leaders. This approach was relevant 20 years ago, but currently there is a need to prove that managers and leaders though opposed by their roles, they have to co-exist and reach success. Leadership and management in 80s A vivid discussion about the role management and leadership play in the organization took place in 80s. This interest was caused by the growing development of Japanese business world. Japanese organizations had their secret: they substituted mechanical function of managers by a facilitative and developmental function (Fairholm, 1998). In America this tendency was ‘wrongly copied’ and managers were mixed up with leaders by a mistake. This process is perfectly described in the following citation: “To punish managers for letting us down, we blessed leaders with the good-guy styles and damned management with the bad-guy ones. The next step was to portray leaders as transformational and managers as transactional” (Kotterman, 2006). It is clearly seen, that in 80s it was rather hard to differ between managers and leaders. Moreover, a function of managers was even neglected and very often at that time managers were described as ‘control freaks’ (Kotterman, 2006). Kotter’s claim was one of the most understandable at that complicated period: he claimed that managers have to deal with difficulties and leaders are focused on change and innovation. Generally, in 80s the main interest of scientists and researchers was focused on leaders, while the function of managers was not interesting for them anymore. Managers’ function to motivate employees for successful performance was taken away from them by leaders. In the book “Leadership and Performance Beyond Expectations” (1985) Bernard Bass claims that leaders have to be responsible for human resources motivation. The main drawback of researches and studies of that time was a lack of attention to the performance of leader’s functions. In other words, these studies were not practically implemented (Fairholm, 1998; (Martin, 1999). It was hard to understand the mechanism of employees’ motivation or a better performance. Of course, leader couldn’t deal with these processes by his own. He needed people and managers to delegate his authorities. He was able only to control over the process of his ideas embodiment (Kotterman, 2006). Leadership and management: a modern approach In the modern business world, there is a need to clearly differentiate between concepts of leadership and management. Prof. Joseph Ross also gives his vision about difference between leadership and management. A leader establishes influential relationship with employees and a manager establishes an authority relationship. Consequently, a leader develops a vision about the future and a manager checks results and solves problems in the process of future vision development (Kotterman, 2006). Thus, this author also explains that leadership and management are two different processes, but both of them are essential for the organizational performance. Currently, leaders are considered to “get people and organizations to change while managers are mainly administrators who write business plans, take control over the process of changes” (Fairholm, 1998). Therefore, it is necessary to talk about functions of management and leadership. The main function of management is to keep things ‘ticking over’ (Kotterman, 2006). Managers should have facilitative skills to make the processes of organizational changes and innovations easier. Moreover, managers have to be inspiring and present organizational changes in such a way that every employee of the organization would be encouraged for changes. In other words, it can be explained in the following way: “an inspiring leader influences us to change direction while an inspiring manager motivates us to work harder” (Maccoby 2000, p. 59). Nevertheless, managers shouldn’t be understood as ‘making people to work harder’ by means of reward or other bureaucratic methods. They have to inspire people to work better for the common goal of the organization. For this purpose, it is relevant for managers to “set-up self-managing teams thus realizing the classic functions of management (planning, organizing and controlling)” (Kotterman, 2006). The main function of leadership is seen in leader’s ability to promote innovations as one-off acts. The leaders have to develop special strategies to take up a certain step (e.g. the developer of PlayStation promoted this new product to Sony management, thus exemplifying bottom-up leadership (Kotterman, 2006). It is also possible to consider the main function of management if to compare investors and managers. Both of them are expecting for the best possible return. Invertors invest money and managers invest people, material, time and other issues. The main expectation of managers is to get the most favorable return from human resources (McCrimmon, 2010). At this point it is relevant to mention that managers can be not only compared with investors, but also with mentors and facilitators. Though it may be argued that the main function of managers is to follow the fulfillment of the process of innovations and changes suggested by leaders, managers may turn this process into new strategies development and innovations’ facilitation (Maccoby, 2000). At the same time it may be argued that leadership works through influence and management through decision making process. The degree of influence in leadership can be compared with the influence exerted on buyers by sellers. For example, leadership can be done on a one-off basis; the distance group can be a target group both for a leader and a seller; the main goal both for a leader and a salesman is when a target person accepts this idea and follows him (Kotterman, 2006). Conclusion In the modern business world it is very important to know ‘who is who’ in order to move to success with exact intentions and knowledge. Therefore currently there is a need to have a clear understanding about what leadership or management is. This doesn’t mean at all that these two concepts should be separated. Vice versa, it is relevant to provide an integrative approach to the study of leadership and management (Martin, 1999). Though both leadership and management play different roles, they wouldn’t be effective in any organization unless they are integrated. Still, there is a need to shift accents to the study of leadership and management. For example, management should be studied as “a more facilitative, nurturing, developmental and empowering function returns it to its rightful place alongside leadership” (McCrimmon, 2010). In such a way, innovations or changes suggested by leaders would be better adapted in any organization. Consequently, once the roles and functions of leaders and managers are clearly understood, any organization may develop its way to success based on a strong and reliable relationship and cooperation between leaders and managers (McCrimmon, 2010). Works cited 1. Fairholm, G. W., 1998. Perspectives on Leadership: From the Science of Management to Its Spiritual Heart. Quorum Books. 2. Kotterman, J., 2006. Leadership versus Management: What's the Difference? The Journal for Quality and Participation, 29, p. 43+. 3. Maccoby, M., 2000. Understanding the Difference between Management and Leadership. Research Technology Management, 43 (1), p. 57+. 4. Martin, P. L., December 1999. Leadership, Management and Corrections. Corrections Today, 61. 5. McCrimmon, Mitch, May/June 2010. Reinventing Leadership and Management. Ivey Business Journal Online. Read More