Leadership vs. Management
Shannon Meaney
LIBR 282 Literature Synthesis
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Executive Summary
Leaders manage and managers lead, but the two activities are not
synonymous…. Management functions can potentially provide leadership; leadership
activities can contribute to managing. Nevertheless, some managers do not lead, and
some leaders do not manage". (Bernard M. Bass, 1990)
A good manager does things right, is efficient and how to do something and a leader
does the right things, has vision and innovation (Bennis & Goldsmith, 2003). People can
find themselves in leadership roles even they hold supervisor or manager position, the
words are sometimes interchanged and often times not differentiated.
Webster’s dictionary refers to “Management”, conducting or supervising of something
and “Leadership”, the power or ability to lead other people. A leader is a person who
plays key roles in decision making, setting a direction or tone for the group, while a
manager is a person with critical roles and responsibilities helping the organization
succeed (webster).
What is the difference between a manager and a leader? Why is there a
difference? Are they synonymous with one another? This paper will introduce the board
to multiple definitions, characteristics, history, theories and the differences and
similarities between leadership and management, discussing both in depth to educate
the reader in how to apply theories into contemporary administrative roles.
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Introduction
When you are in a supervisory role within an organization do you every stop and
think, am I a manager or a leader? Leadership and management are synonymous
styles of supervision currently used within today’s professional environment. This paper
will introduces literature that defines theories, presents historical significance and
outlines the differences and similarities of both these terms.
What are Leadership and Management?
Webster’s dictionary refers to “Management”, conducting or supervising of something
and “Leadership”, the power or ability to lead other people. A leader is a person who
plays key roles in decision making, setting a direction or tone for the group, while a
manager is a person with critical roles and responsibilities helping the organization
succeed (webster)
According to Bennis, the leaders job is to inspire and motivate and a manager’s job
is to plan, organize and coordinate (Bennis & Goldsmith, 2003), Steven Covey, author
of the 7 habits of highly effective people, believes that you lead people and you
manage things (Covey, 2004) and John Knotter of the Harvard Business School
believes that management is about coping with complexity while leading is coping with
change (Allman, 2009).
Gardner identified managers often suggest and individual who holds a directive
post in an organization, a person who organizes functions, allocates resources, and
makes the best use of people. He also noted that every time he encountered an
effective manager that the manager possessed a lot of leadership abilities but the focus
was different (Gardner, 1990).
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Historically leadership is one of the oldest preoccupations and management is a
fairly new concept. With the emergence of complex organizations, leaders introduce the
big ideas. They Create and implement the big picture and its operations then hand it
over to a manger to maintain its efficiency and processes, bringing order and
consistency. Both are vital to for a successful workplace (Kotterman, 2006).
Leadership
Basic leadership styles included; autocratic, one who makes all the decisions, tells
employees what to do, and micro manages their employees; Democratic, one who
encourages employee participation, works with employees to determine what to do, and
does not micro manage; and Laissez-Faire, one who allows employees to make
decisions and decide what to do. Leadership is the function of knowing, yourself,
having vision that is well communicated, building trust among colleagues, and taking
effective action to realize their own leadership potential (Hernon & Rossiter, 2007).
Leadership influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal. Vision,
direction and focus, clear goals, a team spirit, are leadership skills that successfully
align people towards that common goal. Leadership is the single biggest factor that
drives change and organizational improvement. A leader has a clear idea of thaw they
want to do professionally and personally and the strength to persist in the face of
setbacks and failures (Bennis, On Becoming A Leader, 2009).
Leadership Theories
Behavioral/Trait theory is a study of the actions, or behaviors, that define a leadership
style. This theoretical approach to understanding leaders creates categories of styles,
which are aligned with the actions the leader may take, or the methods they use to
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reach their goals. Behavioral leadership theorists have created a list of distinctive
characteristics accounting for leadership effectiveness. From research studies
conducted during the 1940s and 1950s, the trait theory of styles focuses on "what the
leader is." Leadership is thought of as a function of a finite number of characteristics
that differentiate the successful from the unsuccessful leader.
Bennis and Goldsmith are innovate, original, develops, investigates, trust, longrange or big picture perspective, credibility, asks what or why questions, keeping an eye
on the horizon, challenges, has vision and motivates (Bennis & Goldsmith, 2003). John
Gardner studied a large number of North American organizations and leaders and came
to the conclusion that there were some qualities or attributes that did appear to mean
that a leader in one situation could lead in another. These included: physical vitality and
stamina, Intelligence and action-oriented judgment, eagerness to accept responsibility,
task competence, understanding of followers and their needs, skill in dealing with
people, need for achievement, capacity to motivate people, courage and resolution,
trustworthiness, decisiveness, self-confidence, assertiveness, and adaptability/flexibility
(Gardner, 1990). Although these lists were created and determined to be attributes to
successful leaders, theorists have been unsuccessful in identifying a universal set of
traits that all leaders possess.
Edwin Ghiselli cited the traits of initiative, self-assurance, individuality,
supervisory ability, and intelligence (Ghiselli, 1963). He concluded that certain traits are
important to effective leadership; supervisory ability being the most important. Overall,
the trait theory has made a contribution to the study of effective managerial styles, but
not as much as was once thought. Seemingly, traits do not consistently distinguish the
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best leaders, the list of traits keeps growing, many traits are difficult to measure, and the
trait theory ignores other important variables in the leadership situation.
Participative Leadership involves decision making the understanding of the
issues involved by those who carry out the decisions. Taking a more democratic
approach to leadership, this leader seeks to involve others in the decision making
process, i.e., stakeholders, subordinates, peers or supervisors. There are many
varieties on this spectrum, including stages where the leader sells the idea to the team.
Looking at the table below you will see that the level of participation may also depend
on the type of decision being made.
(Changing Minds , 2011)
Situation leadership, the leader’s action best depends on the range of situational
factors. When a decision is being made the leader does not follow a single style of
leadership but uses the transactional methods. Working on such factors as external
relationships, acquisition of resources, managing demands on the group and managing
structures and cultures of the group, Tamnenbaum and Schmidt identified three forces
that led to the leader’s actions: the forces in the situation, forces in the follower and
forces in the leader. A leader’s leadership style is highly variable (Tannenbaum, 1958).
Maier noted that leaders not only considered the likelihood of the follower accepting the
situation, but over all importance of getting things done, this leader is more likely to be
pick a style simply because of the outcome factor (Maier, 1963).
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Contingency Theory is the ability for a leader to lead is contingent on various
situational factors such as the leaders preferred leadership style, abilities and behaviors
of the employees and other situational factors. Leaders who find a good fit between
their orientation and the situation will are more positive, outgoing, confident and
enthusiastic. This creates an atmosphere of productivity and satisfaction for their
employees (Chemers, 1997). ,
Fred Fiedler's contingency model contains the relationship between leadership
style and the favorableness of the situation. Situational favorableness was described by
Fiedler in terms of three empirically derived dimensions; The leader-member
relationship, which in the most important variable in determining the situation's
favorableness, the degree of task structure, which is the second most important input
into the favorableness of the situation and the leader's position power obtained through
formal authority, which is the third most important dimension of the situation. Fiedler's
model, leadership effectiveness is the result of interaction between the style of the
leader and the characteristics of the environment in which the leader works. (Antoine,
2010)
Transactional leadership reflects the theory that people are motivated by reward
and punishment. The transactional leader works through creating clear structures that
are clear on what is required of their employees. The employees that follow these
orders receive contingent rewards and the one that fall short are managed by exception
and punished for failures (Chemers, 1997).
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Transformational leadership inspires people to achieve their goals and
objectives. The way a transformation leader injects enthusiasm and energy into getting
things accomplished. This theory is based on four principles; charisma, inspirational
motivation, intellectual stimulation and individual consideration. House and Shamir’s
Self- Concept Theory of transformational and charismatic leadership gave birth to their
path-goal-theory, which introduced the affects of subordinate motivation by enhancing
the extrinsic valence of outcomes and by making the attainment of outcomes easier by
clarifying paths to the goal and reducing roadblocks. These leaders proved coaching
and guidance to improve the employees perception attaining a goal and then clarifies
performance to reward through goal setting and feedback (Chemers, 1997).
Management
The basic purpose of management is efficiently using resources wisely and in a cost
effective way and effectively making the right decisions and successfully implementing
them. There are different levels of management, top, middle and first-line. The
management process entails planning and decision making, organizing, leading and
controlling. Fundamental management skills include technical, interpersonal,
conceptual, diagnostic, communication and time management (Griffin, 2006)
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What is the difference between management and leadership?
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Management – makes systems of people and technology work well day after day,
week after week, year after year.
o Planning & budgeting
o Organizing & staffing
o Controlling & problem solving
o Taking complex systems of people and technology and making them run
efficiently and effectively, hour after hour, day after day
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Leadership – creates the systems that managers manage and changes them in
fundamental ways to take advantage of opportunities and to avoid hazards
o Creating vision & strategy
o Communicating & setting direction
o Motivating action
o Aligning people
o Creating systems that managers can manage and transforming them when
needed to allow for growth, evolution, opportunities and hazard avoidance
(Kotter, 2011)
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