TO a lay-person, there appears no clear distinction between a leader and manager, after all, they are both at the fore front of driving processes in organisation. But to organisational behaviour scholars, leadership and management are two distinctive but complimentary activities in an organisation.
Indeed, while both leaders and managers are necessary, their purposes and functions in the organisation are different.
In one of his treatise, renown scholar, Stephen Covey described management as “putting first things first day-by-day” even as he stated that leadership on the other hand decides first things.
Another set of scholars asserted that management is concerned with coping with complex, modern organisations while leadership is about coping with change.
Managers try to manage complexity by planning, budgeting, setting goals, establishing steps to achieve goal. Leaders try to effect organisational change through setting a direction, developing vision, values, missions along with strategies for producing change.
Management achieves its plans by organising and staffing, creating organisational structures and set of jobs for accomplishing goals such as staffing the organisation with qualified staff, communicating plans, delegating responsibility and devising systems to monitor implementation.
But leaders alight people by communicating the new direction to those who can create conditions that understand the vision and are committed to its attainment.
However, despite various theories of leadership espoused by behavioural psychologists, each theory of leadership does not give unassailable answers to sources of leadership effectiveness.
If this is so, the question that readily comes to mind is, can effective leaders be made through training and acquisition of skills? Hallam (1999) says yes is the answer. His reason is that “competence transcends all cultures, responsibility also counts. Therefore, people can be made to learn necessary skills, competencies and characteristics. But its is yet to be properly situated through research studies how such characteristics interact with people, culture, tasks and contexts to produce effective leaders.”
While it can also be said that leaders can manage and managers can lead, it is becoming clearer in business and organisations that some leaders don’t manage and many managers don’t provide leadership.
Many times those that aspire to managerial positions or status, do so for the perceived power that they have over other people. While certainly there are times when it is beneficial to have a manager over a leader – most businesses benefit much greater having someone to lead them, someone they can follow and have confidence in.
Note that this post isn’t intended to take a low shot at those whose position might formally be called a “manager.” Rather, this post is to highlight how you might become a better leader in your workplace. Whether you have the formal title of “manager” or not, becoming a leader takes patience, trust, and a multitude of other traits that you must develop over time.
The real difference between managers and leaders.
A manager is a title that can be given that signifies a position – a leader is a title that other people give you.
The differences between leadership and management.
Managers demand respect – leaders command respect.
When you are with a group of people it will immediately become apparent those, who are managers and those, who are leaders. When managers ask or tell people to do something the people do it because of the structure that has been set in place. Leaders will tell or ask people to do something and they do it out of respect. Many times you will find that leaders will have people doing things that they never asked them to do and going above and beyond what is asked.
Managers have subordinates – leaders have followers.
When it comes to accomplishing a task, a manager tells those under them what to do – whether they like it or not. Leaders have people that are willing and happy to do something (even if they don’t like the task) because of the respect that they have for the leader.
Managers tend to have a different mindset as well thinking that those beneath them are actually inferior. Leaders, on the other hand, tend to rise to the top and are viewed by others as the person in charge – whether they have an official title or not.
Leaders create an aura of “we’re all in this together” while managers have a “you need to do this” mentality.
What are the differences?
Gathered from a few different resources and articles, there are significant ways in which leaders and managers differ:
• Managers administer - leaders innovate
• Managers demand - leaders command
• Managers maintain - leaders develop
• Managers focus on systems – leaders focus on people
• Managers strive for control – leaders inspire trust
• Managers have short-term view – leaders have a long-term goal
• Managers are focused on the bottom line – leaders are focused on potential
• Managers imitate - leaders originate
• Managers do things right – leaders do the right thing
• Managers state their position – leaders earn their position
The terrible thing is that the vast majority of managers out there actually think that they are leaders, when in fact, they command little to no respect and they are a leader in their mind only.
True leaders will upset people sometimes, but they still have those that will stick by their side. When a manager truly needs help outside of the scope of their duties, few (if any) will stand up to assist.
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