Defining Leadership and Management - Essay Sample

Introduction

Leadership can be defined as the art of motivating people towards a common goal. Leadership is a practice of social influence which exploits the efforts of others towards the attainment of a goal. It also involves the ability of an individual or a group of people influencing and guiding followers or members of an organization. Leaders are expected to make rational and at times difficult decisions on behalf of their followers. They are also expected to have a clear vision, create goals that are achievable and offer followers with knowledge as well as tools that are important in achieving the goals. Leaders are important in today's organizations that have diverse employees and face competition and other complex environments. An effective leader needs to have various traits so that they can lead people effectively. Such a leader has self-confidence, strong communication skills, willingness to take risks, innovative and creative, management skills, willingness to change, persevere in times of hardships (Western, 2019, pg. 12).

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Management can be defined as the process of controlling and administering the activities of an organization. Managers create a conducive environment for every individual to work collaboratively to achieve the objectives successfully. Managers ensure that people perform their roles as expected by using their abilities, the materials, money, equipment, and methods optimally. Management is important for organizations that desire to be successful. It ensures that objectives are met by ensuring that people play their roles effectively.

Difference between Leadership and Management

There is a difference between management and leadership concepts. Leadership is the action of leading a group of people towards the achievement of a common goal. Leaders have various attributes which include inspiring people to share their vision, motivating them to act on the vision and encourage them and help them to address the challenges they face while pursuing their vision. It is the ability to make people do what they desire to do. The goal of leaders is to achieve goals to motivate and empower teams. Leaders ensure that they get the best from each person for a mutual benefit to be realized. Leadership involves leading by example.

On the other hand, management is the ability to deal and controlling things and people. Management is concerned about how work is done and organized and whether they are accomplished. The role of management is to plan, organize and coordinate, budget and control (Giltinane, 2013, pg. 35).

Management is there to ensure that all the set goals, regulations and responsibilities are met. On the other hand, leadership is there to innovate and create new ways of doing things. Managers ensure that the status quo is maintained while a leader challenges it. Managers are concerned with systems and structure of a company to ensure that it runs as expected. Leaders focus on developing people. Management relies on control to make people perform as expected while leaders build trust with people and inspire them to act. Leaders can create trust with their followers by having empathy. It allows them to build relationships with followers.

Further, these leaders have a high desire to achieve, and this inspires others to follow them. Management has a short-range view where the plan is to achieve the objectives of the company such as increasing productivity, reducing costs and increasing efficiency. However, leaders have long-range perspectives where they have a vision for an organization of how it can be in the future and work towards accomplishing it. Managers strive to do things right the way they are required to do them while the leader strives to do the right thing even if it means disrupting how things are done (Solomon, Costea and Nita, 2016, pg. 143).

Leaders take proactive measures to take advantage of a certain situation or avoid adverse events. On the other hand, managers ensure that an organization is stable by ensuring that all the goals are achieved by implementing measures that encourage people to perform their roles. Management is reactive. Leadership creates principles and guideless of doing things while management creates policies and procedures (Howatt, 2007, pg. 82).

Managers are said to delegate responsibilities and authority to the people through laying down structures that are to be followed; leaders are the individuals that provide direction through developing a vision for an organization serves as an inspiration to most of the employees a factor that makes it easy for the employees to strive to achieve those goals. Leaders are known to have a full understanding of the goals than an organization wishes to accomplish and they have a duty of communicating this information to the team helping them accomplish. The managers use the tools and strategies at their disposals such as performance management and good compensation to encourage the employees to perform better.

Similarly, managers are involved in activities such as planning, staffing controlling, organizing, and planning. However, leadership focuses on building relationships, motivating, inspiring, and persuading followers to work together in harmony to accomplish shared goals. Therefore, it can be argued that the leaders have a role of directing the primary function of management. Leaders are objective and creative such that they evaluate the best alternatives available that will ensure that the organization has surpassed the set level of productivity through minimizing costs and maximizing the output. Management focuses on ensuring that the set guidelines and directions have been followed.

Management is science while leadership is an art. Managers are usually trained on how to apply strategies or methods that are exact, they have been planned, logical, and of given standards. Management leaves small or no space to change or halt the direction an organization is taking to accomplish the set goals. The managers are people who are required for an organization to progress and succeed on their way forward. On the other hand, leaders are essential, and they are a necessity in an organization that has plans to succeed in the future. The leaders get these powers and responsibility from the followers who believe in the vision given or exhibited by the leader. On the contrary, managers have defined powers from the appointing authorities.

Another distinction between leadership and management is that the management is concerned with the technical dimension in an organization. Leadership focus on people aspect of an organization. These leaders lead from the front and buy into the ideas or proposals made in their organization. This aspect of their responsibility ensures that they have that charisma and power to that the followers have bought into those given ideas. The managers have set parameters that ensure that everything is going as planned and any deviation is usually corrected within the shortest time possible. The corrections ensure that there is no deviation from the objectives or the goals that have been set by a given organization. On the other hand, leaders can empower the people being led to accomplish the goals on time and through the utilization of the most effective ways. Management can be said to be reactive since the managers have to address the problems after they have occurred while the leaders are proactive such that they can plan for an alternative course of action before such uncertainties happen.

Leadership is more futuristic while management focuses on records. Managers have the tendency of evaluating employees based on their records on things like performance and productivity. However, the leaders seek to exploit the hidden potential of people and the impact they can make on their performance. The leaders look for ways in which they can extract the potential of the people such that in future they will be able to achieve the set and desired goals and maximize their performance.

Transformational Leadership

Transformational leadership model concept was begun by James V. Downton in 1973. It was later prolonged by James Burns in 1978. The theory was later expanded by Bernard M. Bass in 1985 to cover the methods of measuring the success of transformational leadership. The theory inspires leaders to establish genuine and robust leadership with the notion that workers would be motivated to follow their examples. The model by Bass was created in the 1970s, but it is still applicable today. Transformational leadership is authentic, and therefore it does not change only the environments that it is used changes. It is also relevant in every industry, but it is highly relevant for the fast-paced technology industry where there are so much innovation and agility that has the possibility of making or breaking a company (Kirkbride, 2006, pg. 23).

Transformational leadership is that which inspires, motivates and encourage people to become innovative to create necessary change that allows a business to grow in the future. A transformational leader sets an example to his/her followers by creating a corporate culture and encouraging employees to have a sense of ownership and also be independent in their work. Transformational leaders do not micromanage their followers. They give employees the authority to make decisions in their roles and responsibilities since they know that they are well trained to handle them. Transformational leaders allow employees to be creative, to think about the future and to create solutions to issues. People under transformational leadership also prepare to become like their leaders since they can learn through mentorship and training (Smith, Montagno, and Kuzmenko, 2004, pg. 80).

Transformational leadership is regarded as style through which a leader works with the other subordinates so as to identify the change that is needed in an institution and ensure that they have come up with creation of vision which is aimed at guiding change through inspiring people, executing change, and ensuring that all members are committed to achieving that change. Transformational has three key pillars which include, inspiration, vision and attention and intellectual challenge to followers. Transformational leaders appreciate that employees not only require external motivation from things such as salary and good working conditions but that they also desire intrinsic motivation which includes appreciation and being responsible for their words and actions. A transformational leader focuses on values, standards needs and capabilities of the followers to be able to influence them positively. It requires them to be interacting with people individually and personally to increase the capabilities of followers. These leaders learn the ambitions and the desires of followers, therefore, guiding them in the right direction (Braun, Peus, Weisweiler and Frey, 2013, pg. 270).

Transformational leadership ensures that followers respect the leaders; they are loyal and highly successful as individuals and as teams. On the other hand, some leaders complain about their employees being disengaged. They also report high levels of employee turnover and low productivity which is discouraging. Transformational leadership is effective because employees are informed about the purpose of their roles and responsibilities. The leader acts as the role model for the followers and therefore exhibits integrity in all relationships with different people. A transformational leader portrays integrity and fairness and also set clear goals that give focus and direction to the followers. They also expect more from other people. They recognize the efforts of others and support them in their endeavors. Transformational leaders inspire the emotions of people so th...