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, long-

range 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?

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

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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