Free research paper on leadership vs. management

Introduction

Leader and manager, both play important functions in the organization. Their role in the success of organization is undeniable. Leader and manager both perform different functions to achieve shared organizational goals. People often get confuse between leader and manager due to their complementary functions although they are different. Leader manages people and related processes whereas manager control operation and different activities; both work towards improving organizational performance and achieving desired results. This paper discusses different functions and styles of leaders and managers. The paper further elaborates on how leader and manager are different by comparing their characteristics and functions.

Discussion

Management Style
Management can be described as organization of different processes and activities in an order to produce optimum results or output. Manager emphasizes on proper utilization of different resources such as human resources, technology, and finance etc. Manager controls all processes through effective planning and by organizing different activities. Managers are more oriented towards tasks and duties (Howatt, 2008). Managers achieved desired work standards in limited resources and time. Major functions of managers are:
– Planning: Effective planning of different type of resources and work activities to produce desired results.
– Organizing: Organization of supporting functions and processes in an effective manner.
– Budgeting: financial limitations are critical to projects and common to occur. Managers are responsible to manage financial resources effectively without losing quality and performance of project.
– Controlling: control at various levels is essential to maintain quality in output and manage performance of individuals involve in process. Manager’s control processes to achieve high standards in terms of quality products.
– Coordinating: managers give direction to people to perform functions and activities. They coordinate different tasks in manner to maintain smooth flow of activities.
– Resource Utilization: Mangers ensure that all resources are being utilized effectively to perform functions at hand without stopping any activity.
– Time Management: It is important that all activities of any process or project are completing within timeline.
– Decision making: managers take decisions that good for business performance and processes.
– Problem Solving: managers are responsible to correct and eliminate all the problems from processes and management.
Authoritarian and Transactional Style: Managers have authority and power due to their position in the company. Managers have subordinates who work for them and follow their instructions accurately. Style depicted by managers is transactional. Manager informs his subordinates about activities that need to perform, and subordinates do those activities because they will be provided with a reward in terms of salary and other incentives. Manger reflects task behavior in his style by focusing on goal accomplishment and proper organization of activities to attain goals. Mangers do not take risk and believe and avoid conflict if possible.

Leadership Style

Leaders work with people to produce desired outcome. Leader influence, motivates, and guide people to increase their efficiency. Leaders are blessed with charisma and personality that impress people; people respect, and trust their leaders. People follower their leaders because they trust that decision taken by their leader is good for them (Northouse, 2010). Leaders have vision to see the future hence they are innovative and capable to take risk. Major functions of leader are:
– Vision: leaders have ability to see long-term vision. Leader formulates organizational vision, mission, and goal keeping in mind future trends.
– Motivation: Leaders motivate their followers through empowerment, healthy relationship and caring approach.
– Inspiration: leader inspires his follower by leading example and building trust and credibility. Leader develops high standards to inspire and encourage people.
– Persuasion; People follow leader because of his charisma and impressive personality.
– Team Building: Leader encourages team building and develop collaborative working environment that focuses on individual growth along with organization’s growth.
– Healthy Relationship: Leader establishes healthy relationship with his followers through trust, credibility and charisma.
– Listening: It is important to listen to others in order to understand their problems, provide solutions, and build relationship and to show care.
– Counseling and Mentoring: It is very important that all team members are motivated, and have clear understanding about their work. Counseling and mentoring keeps people away from any type of confusion, and conflict.
Charismatic and Transformational Style: informing people about their tasks does not yield desired results and also not motivate employees to do the tasks. It is essential to show them the main target and how their hard work can yield good results not only for company but for them also. Leader leads employees by creating example through his hard work, and motivation. Leaders with their charisma and caring behavior makes employees understand the importance of organizational goals. Transformational leadership style empowers employees to take decisions and bring innovation. This leadership style understands individual capabilities and allocates tasks accordingly. Transformational leadership style emphasizes on caring behavior and tasks behavior. Leaders take decision keeping in mind the benefits of their followers (Gilbert, 2012). Leaders emphasize on shared organizational goals to make employees feel that they are important for the organization and their growth is also priority for organization. Leaders adopt coaching style to get tasks done from employees.

Leadership vs. Management

Opinion
Leadership and management both are different but important for organizational growth and management. Only people or planning and processes cannot deliver end results. It is essential to have all things in place to yield desired results. Leaders mainly deal with effective people management that is vital for organizational success. However, planning, allocation of resources, organization of activities and formulation of strategy cannot be ignored. It is good to take risk but it may harm business if done without doing proper calculation. Functions performed by leader and manager are essential and both are required for smooth functioning of organization.

Conclusion

After conducting above analysis it is good to conclude that, leader and manager both play vital role in success of organization. Leaders see and formulate the vision whereas managers do planning to achieve that vision. Leaders manage people and managers control tasks and activities. Leaders are blessed with charisma that enables them to establish trust and credibility among followers. Leader takes shared decisions that can bring growth for organization and followers. Managers control things due to their formal position and power. Overall both are important part of any organization.

References

Gilbert, K., 2012. Transformational Leadership. U. S. A.: Xulon Press.
Howatt, W. A., 2008. Leadership Vs Management. USA: Way with Words Editorial Services.
Northouse, P. G., 2010. Leadership: Theory and Practice. New York: SAGE.