Uploaded by Zeeshan Khan

Differences between Leadership and Management

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Introduction
In the contemporary world the word “leader” is ubiquitous as a descriptor for those who
are tasked with guiding their companies, organizations, countries, or even sports teams
towards their desired objectives, in some cases this requirement to have a leader, or a
strong leadership has been in place for a very long time, however these requirements
are now prevalent in corporate organisations across the world, not just in the positions
at the top but a lot of organisations have developed leadership programs for their
management trainees and middle management as per Murphy et al. (2008), one such
example is Johnson & Johnson according to Crosby et al. (2010) who recognized a gap
in their pipeline and developed an executive Quality Leadership Development (EQLD)
program in order to make sure that the high performing employees to be brought into
leadership roles will have the requisite leadership qualities groomed into them so that
they are effective in their decision-making, are able to take on adversity and are able to
hold influence across their global structure.
However, the question arises, isn’t everything mentioned above, part of the manager’s
role anyway? Why is there a push from organizations to have leadership instead of just
management? Are both things interlinked or separate from one another? In order to
answer our questions, we will have to first define management and leadership, we will
have to explore how they relate to one another and then will explore what sets apart
good leadership from good management and why is one more important for an
organization’s success than the other.
Defining Management
Shehnar et al (1996) simply define managers as employees who’s task it is to achieve
results, the expectations or dimensions of the results to be achieve might come from the
business in which they are employed or from a client of the business, however the
defining trait of a manager is that they achieve the required results through others, be it
other people, technology, situations, processed or resources such as money.
According to Indeed.com “Management is the coordination and administration of tasks
to achieve a goal. Such administration activities include setting the organization’s
strategy and coordinating the efforts of staff to accomplish these objectives through the
application of available resources”, in order to become a manager, an individual would
have to develop a skillset in order to be able to plan and organize their tasks and be
effective at accomplishing them.
The skillset and responsibilities of a manager are more strategic than a specialist who
might be working in their team, a management role requires:
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Problem solving
-
Negotiation with internal and if required external clients
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Effective communication
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Conflict Resolution: amongst teammates under their charge
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The ability to delegate tasks and to be able to gauge the workload of the
resources under their charge
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The ability to monitor the completion status of tasks provided
These are the competencies which a manager will need to fall back on in order to be
effective in their day-to-day operations. Traditionally these competencies have been
enough for a manager to effectively manage their tasks and provide results which were
required in a structurally hierarchal organization as described by Clegg et al. (2019)
where the managers got their task completed by giving orders and managed their
workforce with command and by wielding the power that comes with the position.
Changing Organizational Dynamics and the need for a new approach
Traditional organizations however, often relied on their workforce to accomplish their
goals via non- complex, repetitive and often menial tasks. I modern times with the
advent of globalization and rapid adoption of technology into the corporate world and
organizational processes, the way that organizations accomplish goals and conduct
business has changed radically. One ever increasing phenomenon according to Frey
and Osborne (2017), is the automation of simple processes and tasks via digitization or
robotics, the result of which is that the workforce does not just comprise low-skill
employees, instead the modern workforce comprises of high-skill knowledge workers
who are capable of carrying out complex tasks and take part in more meaningful
activities that have bigger impact on the business, this according to Davenport (2005)
sets them apart from traditional workers because in although these knowledge workers
can produce excellent work with immense impact for the business, in order to get them
to their most productive selves, they have different intellectual needs from the traditional
workers and thus they present new challenges for the organization in how to manage
them. There are several factors which have made the contemporary working
environment different from the traditional one we will go through those which I think are
the most important ones
Advancement in Technology
Adoption of technology in business processes has been accelerated since the digital
revolution came along in the 70s, it is now completely integrated into all sorts of
businesses big and small, be it for accounting, stock keeping, sales and marketing or
even the existence of the business, which has shifted online from brick-and-mortar
stores.
Levitt (1999) describes technology as the catalyst for consumer reach and interaction
into new global markets allowing businesses to scale up rapidly, something that in the
past would have required a lot of capital and incurred cost that was unfeasible to even
sell the products. Internal business processes have also been digitized and then further
made smart with the recent inclusion of AI. This has allowed for jobs to be automated to
the extent that along with the everyday repetitive tasks of any business unit, that
computers can also recognize patterns and create performance or cost forecasts based
on existing patterns, all of this has resulted in quite a large number of human resources
being left obsolete in the face of the technological wave, which is fast, efficient, and
most importantly cost friendly for businesses to improve their profit margins. However,
the workers who are left behind, still valuable to the business, are highly skilled and
highly specialized knowledge workers. These workers, according to Scarborough (1999)
are motivated by self-fulfillment, desire for a greater influence in their work, desire to
make a positive impact and they have expectations from their employers to provide
them with the right guidance and career path which will give them a greater scope for
learning and development.
Societal Advances
With the ease provided by communication technology, large multi-national organisations
are now very prevalent across the world and many companies have teams working
remotely and communicating across borders to accomplish day-to-day tasks or to
manage projects, especially in the tech start-ups, the founding teams can sometimes be
multinational as well.
One of other major changes to society that affect the workplace as well is the
progressiveness that society is constantly undergoing, with the help of activism, social
sciences and the public conscience humanity has been able to look back on its faults
and let go of collective damaging behaviors. All of the social justice movements have
been able to bring about meaningful change to society, which is then translated into the
workplace, discrimination on the basis of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or beliefs
is no longer tolerated in the workplace, by extension employees are aware of their rights
and the respect, which is due to them, this is especially true in the age of proliferation of
social media where everyone is able to share their experiences and opinions and gain
exposure to all this knowledge.
A big change is that in the western world is that corporate environments are becoming
increasingly multi-ethnic and multi-cultural, this is not only true for traditionally large
manufacturing organizations, but also almost all new tech startups which do not have
the restriction of needing to have employees I geographical proximity to each other,
instead they can recruit the best talent globally and work together as a team remotely,
they get several competitive advantage as a result of this internationalization, as per
Tanev (2017), including; (1) A global talent pool (2) Easier to secure foreign financing
(3) International consumer exploration and (4) Freedom from domestic inertia. However
in order to manage these resources, managers now need to be aware of cultural
sensitivities of their colleagues as explained by Siddons & Nickson (2012). Similarly,
there has been a push towards gender diversity in the workplace, therefore there is not
only a larger ratio of women and other genders in the workplace, but also the historic
treatment of non-cis-gendered men has been brought to light in the collective societal
conscience, which was atrocious, therefore an effort has been made to rectify the
behavior of workers towards women and non-binary colleagues, these are also
sensitivities that the modern managers needs to be aware of and act accordingly.
All these changes and advancements have made the old style of management almost
obsolete; organizations are no longer hierarchal, with bureaucratic structures and large
teams of workers doing segmented tasks with minimal value addition. Teams are now
comprised of often multi-national, diverse knowledge workers who want fast career
advancements, fulfilling jobs are feel like contributors to the business and they also
have an expectation from their employers to be socially and environmentally
conscientious according to Myers et al (2010). In order to manage and guide these
employees in a way that maximizes productivity, reduces employee turnover and
cohesively drives the entire organization towards its objectives.
Leadership: The Evolution of Management
One of the questions we asked at the start of this report is, what is the difference
between leadership and management? Well according to Perrin (2010) there is actually
no difference, in fact, both things are one and the same, or rather one is a subset of the
other, a leader is a manager as well, however there are traits in a leader which don’t
necessarily come under the scope of management, at least not how we have
traditionally understood it, these traits are compiled into a leadership zone model by
Perrin, they are as follows
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Reflection: The practice of introspection, that a manager must follow and
contemplate on their behavior, their performance, how to learn from mistakes
and take responsibility for them and to absorb the opinions of their peers and
team members to learn from them
-
Society: The practice of being ethical and socially responsible, to practice
fairness and create a meritocracy, and most importantly to recognize and
challenge unethical practices wherever they see them
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Diversity: To be inclusive of all people, not just promote diversity of races,
genders, beliefs and sexual orientation, but also to promote diversity of thought,
which would truly bring the ability to tackle problems with the maximum range of
consideration
-
Ingenuity: It is the ability to empower and enable their team in effective problem
solving, this can range from motivational tactics to imparting experience to team
building, knowing which tactic to use in what situation is what constitutes
ingenuity
-
People: Being able to understand, read and empathize with the people under
their charge, once again this constitutes the ability to motivate and remove
doubts and impostor syndrome from their team members to improve
performance
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Business: A good leader needs to understand and manage the business, and be
cognizant of the costs, forecasting, analysis and the planning required to guide
the business towards growth and profitability
Turk (2007) agrees with Perrin and says that a good leader is inherently a good
manager as well, the main difference he highlights in leadership and management is the
creation of a following, a good leader will be able to inspire a following not due their
position, but due to their understanding and connection with the people, along with their
competence and credibility. With all these tools an effective leader can effectively
accomplish the objectives that the business or clients will set them.
Corporate Leadership
So far, we have defined individual leadership and it’s merits, now we need to shift our
focus towards bringing the same merits to the leadership of a whole corporation, this
leadership is more imbued in the structure of the organization and it’s ways of working
rather than relying on individuals at board level to provide leadership, of course the
individuals are also responsible to provide leadership in their areas of influence, but the
corporate leadership model needs to sustain itself beyond the working term of any
particular individual.
Bartram et al. (2011) have studied and defined a model for corporate leadership called
the “SHL approach to Leadership” it is a holistic model that takes several domains into
account which can be used to build a sustainable and effective structure for corporate
leadership. The model covers the following domains
1. Key goals and Outcomes:
a. The focus of the goal, be it economic, social, or technological.
b. The segmentation of leadership within the organization according to
responsibility and scope of the job, from the top management at board
level, to the skilled or semi-skilled workers. This ensures that the correct
people are hired in the right place according to qualifications and
experience
c. The mapping of stakeholders to determine how the outcomes of the goals
will impact each stakeholder, this includes shareholders, employees,
customers, suppliers and the government
2. Key Competencies: Evaluating leadership competencies and aiming to tailor
them to each situation, some situations require task-oriented leadership, while
others require person-oriented leadership, this relation is fluid, and the structure
can loosely provide guidelines for implementation. People can be led by different
things, for example, their abilities, their personalities, their values or their
interests
3. Context, Situational Variables and Culture: The role of culture is immense in
organizational leadership, because it marries the values that an organization
wants to follow with the objectives it needs to achieve, these values need to
embodied by all the employees playing the role of a leader because that is the
cohesion to be used to ensure everyone pulls together in the same direction.
According to Farlaye (2007) the same leadership structure does not necessarily fit all
organizations so there are other leadership hypotheses and structures to explore as
well since every organization faces it’s own set of challenges, whether they are related
to the industry it operates in, the time period, the consumer-base, the type of
employees, economy etc. So it is incumbent upon the orgainzations to research and
find a leadership structure that fits them well.
Conclusion
Leadership is has emerged as a better method of management within a contemporary
organization because it is a more holistic view of management that does not just take
into account the processes and tasks to be completes and outcomes to gain, it also
takes into the account the motivations, relationships and values of human beings which
allow leaders to motivate their colleagues in a more meaningful way and aims to create
a belonging of employees with the organization through shared beliefs and values. The
modern employees look for more than just remuneration at their workplace, they look for
knowledge, growth and a place to contribute to the society and their environment.
References
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