The Concept of Leadership and Management - Literature review Example

Introduction to Management Introduction The concept of leadership and management differs from each other. Leaders are the persons who can influence an individual or a team of employees to achieve organisational goals. Leaders generally hold a dominant position in their field and they are able to exercise high level of command over others. Leadership is generally considered as an inherent competency of any individual. Leaders generally win followers in any organisation. They are also responsible for creating significant changes within the vision and operational outcome of any organisation (Tannenbaum, Weschler and Massarik, 2013). On the other hand, managers can be described as those persons who manage different tasks of any organisation or control different departments within any company. Managers are mainly responsible for directing different groups regarding their tasks rather than creating a new team. Most of the managerial skills are not innate. They can be generated over a period of time through different training and skill-based programs (Mintzberg, 2003). Most of the authorities of any organisation require both the capabilities to introduce proper management system across all the departments (Hunt, Hosking and Schriesheim, 2013). The further discussion will emphasise on different importance of leadership as well as managerial roles in the development of any organisation. It will also evaluate various difficulties that an organisation may face due to the absence of any of these qualities. Discussion Managers of any organisation mainly concentrate on management of the employees and organisational operation rather than creating followers. Organisations generally need managers with different skills and competencies for various types of departments and functions (Drucker, 2012). The managerial role can be divided into three major categories such as informational, interpersonal and decisional roles. Interpersonal role directs managers to work as a figurehead and liaison. As a figurehead, managers need to fulfil all the social, legal and ceremonial responsibilities of any organisation. Managers are expected to be the source of inspiration within the different team members of any organisation (Mintzberg, 2003). As a liaison, managers are responsible for building and maintaining the internal and external communications of any organisation. They need to effectively network with all the stakeholders on behalf of their organisation (Mintzberg, 2003). The informational role of managers assists them to monitor different teams of any organisation in terms of their productivity and well-being. Managers are responsible for gather and maintain information related to the organisation and industry. They also need to be aware of the changes in internal and external environment of any organisation and react according to those changes (Erik Sveiby, 2007). Managers need to communicate useful information to their colleagues and team members. The decisional role of managers indicates their problem solving and resource allocation capacities. Managers need to decide upon the proper allocation of financial as well as human resources as per the requirement of different projects in any organisation (Erik Sveiby, 2007). One of the major roles of any manager is to handle conflict and disturbance within the team members of any organisation (Maxwell, 2005). Leadership functions are quite different from the managerial roles. Leaders generally prefer to create constructive changes rather than following and adapting the changes in the industry. They believe in creating a new team instead of directing a preformed group (Mumford et al, 2000). Effective leadership creates example for employees and managers to achieve the personal and organisational success. Leaders and leadership function is very essential in any business environment to achieve desired organisational goal. Leaders can be considered as one of the undeniable part of organisational management that helps the business to maximize their overall efficiency (Tannenbaum, Weschler and Massarik, 2013). Any size or types of businesses requires effective leaders to achieve success. The lack of effective leadership can hinder the growth of any organisation. It can also diminish the competitive advantages of the organisation in the local as well as global market (Day, 2001). The leadership capability allows individuals to create a clear vision and communicate it effectively across all levels of employees in any organisation. This leadership capability assists the employees to understand the organisational direction (Day, 2001). Leaders are responsible to effectively plan and initiate the actions for proper execution of different operations to achieve the ultimate goal of the organisation. The inclusive planning procedure of leaders also assists the employees to identify, understand and contribute to the well-defined objectives (Avolio and Gardner, 2005). Leaders not only supervise the employees of any organisation, they also guide them to achieve efficiency in their day to day work. The enthusiasm and commitment of leaders motivates the entire workforce of any organisation to share a common goal. They also inspire each employee to provide a high level of performance (Avolio and Gardner, 2005). A leader can build morale within organisation by achieving co-operations of the employees towards their tasks and gaining their trust. Leaders are also entitled to handle a wide range of organisational crisis. Good leadership potential helps the entire team of any organisation to stay focus on their objectives during the phase of crisis. During this phase of time, leaders play an important role to encourage the employees by setting short and attainable goals. Incorporating new ideas and inviting innovative proposal from employees are also considered as the attributes of an efficient leader (Schein, 2010). Sometimes it has been seen that the great leaders of organisations fail to become a good manager. Leaders are well known for analysing different opportunities and leveraging positive changes across all the departments of organisations. On the contrary, managers prefer to follow the visions and objectives created by the leaders. They also monitor the team structure procedure and the flow of the operations to ensure proper execution of organisational processes (Pansiri and Temtime, 2008). Leaders generally create strategies and policies for the organisations while managers are responsible for executing the strategies properly. Lack of managerial skills may hamper the execution procedure of the valuable strategies. It can restrict the efficient and timely attainment of organisational missions. Therefore, it will create obstacles to the achievement of the desired goal. For example, the absence of proper managerial guidance in Nokia is the major reason behind their failure to create a competitive positioning in the smartphone market (Pansiri and Temtime, 2008). The insufficiency of managers and managerial skills in any organisation indicates improper distribution of organisational resources for the execution of different important projects. Apart from strategy making capacity of leader’s, organisations also need the resource allocation skills of managers to ensure proper utilization of their manpower. These practices may harm the financial condition of the organisation and lead to the failure of various projects. Improper human resource distribution and team management is one of the major results of the lack of managerial skills within the leaders of the organisations (Hunt, Hosking and Schriesheim, 2013). For the success of any strategic implementation, organisations need to allocate the human resources as per their skills and competencies (Hunt, Hosking and Schriesheim, 2013). The main role of any leader is to create a certain goal for the organisation and to guide the employees towards the achievement of those targets. On the other hand, managers help the employees to communicate their queries and issues regarding the projects and execution procedures. Though the leaders are responsible for creating teams within any organisation, the managerial skills are essential to direct these teams in terms of achieving the desired goal of the organisation (Hunt, Hosking and Schriesheim, 2013). Managers generally collect the feedbacks from the workforce and provide suitable solutions to ensure proper achievements of organisational goals. The unavailability of proper managerial skill will restrict organisations to effectively communicate with the workforce. It will also create problems in terms of providing valuable instructions to the employees. The inability of leaders to collect feedbacks from the workforce may increase ambiguity and job dissatisfaction within the employees (Hunt, Hosking and Schriesheim, 2013). The properly planned leadership program can also fail due to the inefficiency of handling the conflicts within the team members of the organisation. The leadership skills allow the authorities to gain trust of the employees while the managerial skills will assist them to create a healthy bond between team members. Improper conflict management within the workforce may hamper the team work spirit. It can also decrease the productivity of a huge number of employees. The conflict management skill of a manager is essential to ensure strong bond between the employees within different groups of organisations which subsequently results in increasing the efficiency of the total workforce (Hunt, Hosking and Schriesheim, 2013). The resource allocation plan of British Airways can be considered as a successful management procedure. In 1981, the newly appointed Chairperson of British Airways had noticed that the organisation was wasting various valuable resources due to their inefficient resource allocation structure (Hunt, Hosking and Schriesheim, 2013). The management therefore adopted a change methodology to restructure the entire organisation. This restructuring procedure had enabled the management of British Airways to assess the skills and personalities of different employees which therefore had assisted the organisation to enhance the productivity of their workforce. This procedure had also helped them to properly allocate their financial resources to gain utmost advantages out of it (Pansiri and Temtime, 2008). Though the managerial skills are very essential for the proper execution of organisational operations and functions, the leadership capabilities are also required to ensure the proper growth of the business. Lack of leaders in any organisation reduces the motivation of the employees. It also hampers the competitive position of any organisation within the operational market (Kotter, 2001). Managers mainly confirm that all the rules and policies are properly followed by the all the departments of the organisation. On the other hand, leaders influence the out-of-the-box thinking and risk taking capacity of the employees. The inadequate leadership capacity within the authorities of any organisation will restrict the employees from innovating and introducing new products and work processes. This situation will obstruct the growth of organisations in the competitive market (Yukl, 2008). The managers of any organisation are, by nature, the implementer of the rules and policies created by the leaders. The management of any organisation cannot succeed without any strong and well-structured vision and objectives. The followers or employees generally look to the managers for the tasks and solutions while they count on the leaders for the ultimate purposes (Yukl, 2008). A manager mainly deals with the details and ensures to meet all the deadlines efficiently. Managers are well-efficient to accurately conduct different processes such as planning, budgeting, stuffing, measuring performances, solving problems and structuring jobs. Management helps the employees to consistently maintain the budget and quality of their production procedure (Tayles, Pike and Sofian, 2007). On the contrary, leaders help any organisation to find their future opportunities. Leadership skills also assist organisations to improve their production techniques and capacities to meet the future opportunities (Isaac, Zerbe and Pitt, 2001). With the development of communication system and technologies, a huge number of organisations are expanding their operations to different countries. This process is altering the objectives and vision of different organisations. These changes are also allowing the organisations to create a strong position in the diversified global market. Lack of leadership capabilities will restrict any organisation to grab the opportunities of global market. It will also decrease their chances to secure a competitive position in the continuously developing market (Isaac, Zerbe and Pitt, 2001). Leaders of any organisation will also allow the employees to take calculative risks to evaluate various opportunities within the market. This risk taking procedures not only increases the confidence and knowledge of the employees, it also elevates the growth opportunities of the organisation (Isaac, Zerbe and Pitt, 2001). For example, the CEO of Intuit, Brad Smith, has fostered an organisational culture where he allows almost 8000 of his global employees to take risks in their day to day business functions. This practice has assisted the organisation to secure a leading position in the global financial software industry. It has also allowed the organisation to increase their revenue to $4 billion (Isaac, Zerbe and Pitt, 2001). Conclusion The discussion has evaluated various advantages of leadership as well as managerial capacities in the growth and success of the organisational functions. The leaders are responsible for creating vision and goals for any organisation. They play a major role in designing strategies for the organisation. The managers of any organisation concentrate on the proper implementation of the strategies. They generally supervise all the systematic execution of organisational operations. The study has also evaluated that the role of leaders is focused on creating a team and imparting adequate instructions and guidance to the team members, while the managers tackle the feedbacks and queries of employees. The managers also handle all the conflict and grievances of the workforce to ensure job satisfaction and increased productivity of the employees. The details of the essay have conveyed that the leadership capabilities assist the authorities to seek for the new growth opportunities in the global market. On the other hand, the managerial procedure ensures the proper allocation of organisational resources and desired delivery of products and services. From this analysis it can be said that both the managerial and leadership skills are essential for the success and sustainability of any organisation. Hence, it can be concluded that every organisation need to have managers and leaders to achieve a strong competitive position in the local as well as global market. Reference List Avolio, B. J. and Gardner, W. L., 2005. Authentic leadership development: Getting to the root of positive forms of leadership. The leadership quarterly, 16(3), pp. 315-338. Day, D. V., 2001. Leadership development: A review in context. The Leadership Quarterly, 11(4), pp. 581-613. Drucker, P., 2012. Management. London: Routledge. Erik Sveiby, K., 2007. 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