To survive and to succeed companies need both, managers and leaders. The concepts of “leadership” and “management” are not always identical, but the essence of their differences, most people understand wrongly. Leadership doesn’t have anything mystical and mysterious. This is not the privilege of a narrow circle of the chosen people. Leadership is not necessarily more important than management, and one does not replace the other. In fact, leadership and management in the company are two separate, complementary systems of action. Each has its own function and characteristic of its activities. To success in today’s business world, which is an increasingly complex and rapidly changing, it is necessary to have both, leaders and managers.
Management of companies deals with the management of complex structures. It consists of formal management practices and procedures. In the absence of competent management the chaos covers these complex enterprises and their existence is under threat. Skilful management adds to the key performance indicators of the company such things as the quality and profitability of products, a certain amount of order and sequence.
As to the leadership, so it is primarily associated with the ability to adequately cope with change. In recent years the leadership became particularly important. This is partly explained by the fact that the modern business world has extremely tough competition and high variability.
To successfully manage a complex structure, the company’s managers primarily direct the planning and budgeting – in other words they put the firm goals for the future, detail the steps on the way to achieve them and then allocate resources to implement these plans. As for leaders, designed to make a constructive organizational change, so their work begins with choosing the course of development – create the desired image of the company in the future, as well as develop strategies to implement the necessary measures to bring that image to life.
Turning to the implementation of their plan, managers are focusing on the organization and recruitment companies, so they create an organizational structure and define the positions necessary to fulfill the intended plan of work, pick up qualified staff and acquaint them with the details of the plan, allocate responsibilities and establish a system for monitoring progress of work. Leaders start from different thing – from finding allies. This means that about the new course of development is told to everyone who can help gather like-minded people believing in the dream of a better future for the company and determined to make it a reality.
Finally, to monitor the implementation of the plan, managers resort to control and solve problems – thoroughly compare resulting performance with the plan (both formal and informal ways: through reports, meetings, etc.), identify deviations and then re-engaged in planning and organization already identified gaps. As to the leaders, so the embodiment of an ideal image requires the ability to support them in their motivation and enthusiasm of the supporters. They need to make sure that in spite of serious obstacles people have gone off track, which leads them to a new future. At the same time leaders must appeal to the vital, though often unconscious, human needs, values and emotions (Hughes, 2008).
One of the main differences of leadership and management is that the leader inspires while the manager checks and solves the problem. Since the main function of a leader is to be agent of change, so his particular importance is in making people enthusiastic. It is he, who helps to overcome the inevitable barriers to organizational change. The choice of strategic direction sets the course of development, and the ability to convince people to become the allies encourages them to take this path. Similarly, a true motivation gives people confidence that they have the strength to overcome all obstacles.
The logic of the manager is different. He takes over the function of control: compares the real state of a company with what it should be, and if there are deviations from the plan, he takes corrective action. Leadership is something completely different. The implementation of the grandiose plans always requires special tidal energy. Motivating and inspiring people, the leaders call to their enthusiasm. But it happens not because the workers are forced to move in the right direction, as it the manager does as a part of disciplinary control. The thing is that appeals of the leader allows people to meet natural human need, such as the desire for achievement, need to feel a sense of belonging to a common cause and self-esteem, desire for social recognition, desire to feel control over the destiny and be able to live with personal ideals . These calls penetrate the depths of the soul and arouse an energetic response.
Leaders and managers have different attitude to the aims and tasks. To convince people of the correctness of his decision, managers must constantly coordinate and reconcile opposing points of view. Curiously, that this work has much in common with the activities of intermediaries and diplomats, among them one of the most prominent was, of course, Henry Kissinger (Daft, 2007). Managers try to achieve a balance of power, to help reach compromise solutions to people with antagonistic views.
Leaders act in the opposite way. When managers try to limit the number of possible options, the leaders, on the contrary, invent new innovative approaches to solving long-standing problems and give out new ideas. If the leader wants to succeed, he must be able to clothe his thoughts in a fiery speech that can lead people to enthusiasm, and only then can make choices and decide how these ideals will be realized.
Contemporary companies and organizations need both effective leaders and effective managers in order to run a successful business. There are some noticeable similarities, such as that leadership and management both involve influencing employees and that both positions include authority and power. There are also obvious differenc¬es, such as that management is often more task-oriented, while leadership is usually more inspirational and visionary. It is also known that management relies on positional power, which includes authority or status. Leadership relies on personal power, thanks to the ability to develop strong and mutually rewarding relationships. So, there are many similarities and differences between management and leadership, and a modern company needs both succeed.
Work Cited:
Daft, Richard L., Lane, Patricia G. The leadership experience. 2007. p. 65. Print.
Hughes, Richard., Ginnett, Robert., Curphy, Gordon. Leadership: Enhancing the lessons of experience, 6th edition, 2008. Print.