Differentiate between Management and Leadership - Essay Example

This paper exhibits an insight into the eminent distinction between the two important concepts viz. management and leadership. Both the conceptions are of utmost importance in the context of proper organizational functioning and development of healthy organizational culture. Nevertheless these two terms are widely misunderstood and sometimes even interchanged for each other in a heedless manner. Discrimination between the two locutions and the underlying concepts is indispensable in order to apprehend the role played by each of them in the sustainable success of an organization. Hence, the paper draws out the distinction underlying the concepts of management and leadership, and investigates into the roles played by leadership in the development of healthy organizational culture. Management and Leadership— An Overview The terms management and leadership have been defined and discussed with different words and perceptions ever since their evolution. To better evaluate the distinction between these two terms, it is imperative to have an insight into their meaning and essence. Bateman-Snell (2003, p. 14) describes management as “the process of working with people and resources to accomplish organizational goals”. Therefore, management is about having the work done through other people under a set of pre-defined policies and procedures to fulfill the organizational goals. By the definition, a manager strives to achieve set goals through proper utilization of what is available him, in the form of human and other resources. Leadership, on the other hand, has much dynamic roles to play than the management. As Bateman-Snell (2003, p. 366) propounds, “Outstanding leaders combine good strategic substance and effective interpersonal processes to formulate and implement strategies that produce results and sustainable competitive advantage”. The definition reflects that true leadership never relies on accomplishing a goal only under some pre-defined policies. It takes to have the ‘strategic substance’ blended with ‘effective interpersonal processes’ to lead a team in a highly competitive environment. At the heart of leadership is the act of swiftly adapting the strategies to the demands of a given situation in the pursuit of obtaining the desired results. Bateman and Snell (2003, p. 14) also identify management in the spectrum of its four functions viz., planning, organizing, leading and controlling. It specifies that a manager has to perform these functions to make the most of available resources towards the achievement of goals. It also demonstrates that ‘leading’ or ‘leadership’ itself is a part of management, which lands us to the point that management and leadership are inseparable and thus, a good manager needs to be a good leader for the successful attainment of organizational goals in a competitive environment. An understanding of this notion will be helpful in the further demarcation of these two concepts. Distinction Between Management and Leadership As evident from the above definitions, management and leadership are two distinct terms implying the different roles played by a manager and a leader. This discrimination is tacit not in the ‘titles’ associated to them but with the scope of activities performed under these rubrics. The key distinctive elements can easily be picked out once the major substance or essence underlying the concepts is interpreted in true sense. As Bennis puts forward (as cited in Riggs Donald, 2001) the distinguishing elements underlying leadership and management based on the roles each one plays, some ways in which these can be contrasted are: The manager supervises whilst a leader incites efforts to reach the goal The manager imitates whereas a leader is dynamic and unusual The manager strives under the short-run perspective and a leader perceives long-run goals The manager is system oriented but a leader is people-oriented The manager takes the situation as it comes his way while a leader remains prepared to challenge it The manager believes in controlling people whereas the leader builds trust in his team The above distinguishing elements draw a line between the roles played by a leader and a manager within the context of an organization. Management is essential to make the most of the available resources and existing situation, while leadership is imperative to adapt the strategies and exert combined efforts to ‘make’ and ‘drive’ a situation favorable for the accomplishment of organizational goals. The management and leadership roles differ particularly when it comes to the contemporary environment of escalating competition. The environment is dynamic and the status quo keeps on changing. Thus, these quickly shifting circumstances in today’s world call for effective leadership that is able to take people and whatever the resources available in the direction best desirable for the situation. Plausibly the most significant factor distinguishing management from leadership is ‘vision’. While a manager perceives short-term goals and objectives, the leader focuses on future and long-term goals. As Bateman and Snell (2003, p. 368) illuminate, “Management requires structuring the organization, staffing it with capable people, and monitoring activities; leadership goes beyond these functions by inspiring people to attain the vision”. What makes a leader is the vision for future and then the vigor to drive the organization aptly towards the attainment of goals, tailoring the strategies and activities as required in a particular situation. Leadership rigorously puts its emphasis on people in the organization and then instigates in them the attitude for change as desirable for the organization. As illuminated above, management and leadership does not necessarily imply the presence of two separate personalities in the organization. Distinction between the conceptions is imperative but leading and managing cannot be separated from one another. Leadership is a part of management and a manager needs to have leadership qualities to attain the organizational goals in today’s competitive environment. Responsibilities Of Leaders For Healthy Organizational Culture— Recommendations The roles and responsibilities of a leader are much evident from the above discussion distinguishing management from leadership. To elaborate further, it can be ingeminated that at the heart of leadership is the concept of change. A leader is nothing without his people and the element of change implies preparing people and organization to change for the accomplishment of vision already established in the dynamic environmental conditions. Thus, the first and foremost role played by a leader is to identify the areas to permute and then fostering the required change to create and harbor a healthy organizational culture. To construct and foster a healthy organizational culture, a leader performs several tasks even if he is driving a transformation in organization or undertaking any challenging activity. First of all, he divides every activity in episodes according to the capacity of individuals in the organization. Secondly he fosters organizational norms and values within the people to deal with conflict and differences. He protects his people and inspires them to adapt to situations rather than imposing work upon them. He maintains discipline in the organization by assigning responsibility and involving them in decision making and enhancing communication. Finally he nurtures self-confidence among people and envisages leadership as a practice undertaken on a regular basis (Heifetz and Lauries, 1997). Hence, the first recommendation for a leader to create and promote healthy organizational culture is to nurture change. Heifetz and Lauries (1997) illustrate the example of KPMG Netherlands, in which Ruud Koedijk- the chairman realized the need for change in the firm. He visualized certain norms of the firm hindering its way in discovering the new talent in the organization. People were considered a machine and success was a matter of profitability. Therefore, he developed strategies to infuse opportunities in the organization that could lead the employees to discover new talent within themselves. He fostered communication, enhanced trust levels, developed within employees a need for change and thus people identified for themselves the areas where they needed to permute. In this way nothing was imposed, the leader just drove the individual behavior towards desired results. The second recommendation for a leader is to adapt the organizational culture to suit the competitive needs of the organization. Heifetz and Lauries (1997) exemplify another case British Airways that was led to transformation by the Chief Executive Colin Marshal. The company seriously lacked a focus on customer services during 1980s, a resultant of obsolete organizational culture. Any change in this locus was to infuse a complete change in the organizational culture, which was achieved by Marshal through the development of trust in the organization. He inspired people to listen to the customers, efforts to managing conflicts and seeing them as opportunities, and then identifying the domains in the organization to challenge for a change. Thus, an outcome of these efforts could be seen in the success of British Airways in its efficient customer service. Reference List Bateman-Snell (2003), Management: The New Competitive Landscape (6th edition, pp. 14-368). New York: McGraw-Hill Inc. Bennis W. (1989), On Becoming a Leader. In Riggs, D.E. (2001), The Crisis And Opportunities In Library Leadership. Haworth Information Press Inc. Heifetz, R.A. and Lauries, D.L. (1997). The Work Of Leadership. Harvard Business Review, 124-134 Read More