Leadership vs Management

Leadership is about getting people to understand and believe in your vision and to work with you to achieve your goals while managing is more about administering and making sure the day-to-day things are happening as they should.

Management and leadership functions are definitely not one and the same, although they are unavoidably linked together hand and hand. Evidently, it is clear to note that they overlap and compliment one another. Having one without the other no doubt will cause more problems than it solves. Yet the two indefinitely have their major differences. To start, a manager manages tasks and systems, while a leader leads and inspires people. “The manager’s job is to plan, organize and coordinate. The leader’s job is to inspire and motivate.” (Murray, 2010).

Although the terms “management” and “leadership” are often confused as in meaning the same there is a distinction between the words. The distinction between the words is that people manage things and lead people (Collins, 2017).

Managing is about knowing the importance of coping with complexity which is planning well and knowing how to budget. Managers jobs also have to do with organizing and staffing and also they have to know how to stay in control and problem solve. Leadership is about coping with change which includes setting direction aligning people and motivating and inspiring. Someone who managers and everyone else can look up to. Clawson states “Leadership is about managing energy, first in yourself and then in those around you” (Clawson 2012, p. 3) With the leader being someone to look up to he opens the door and sets the path for the followers to want better for

Management and leadership are often thought of as the same within business. The fact is that each of these has a different meaning:

There is a difference between leadership and management, although they are similar in some ways. While, they both want to achieve common goals, influence people, and work with people, they are different. Managers aim to create consistency and

Leadership vs. Management, are they the same? No!. “A leader focus on setting goals and direction, challenging the norm, and seeking new ways of working towards the goals. On the other side, Managers specialize on conformance to the standards. They manage teams and individuals, organizing, directing and controlling to achieve goals” (EBA, 2016).

Leadership is a vital characteristic to be successful. Managers are often called to act as both a leader and a businessman. Finding a balance between managing and leading can be the difference between success and failure. Managers are asked to control their employees and promote the welfare of the business. Leaders, on the other hand, focus on fostering their mentees welfare and turning weaknesses into strengths.

The differences between the two are; management you are to provide order and consistency to organizations, and leadership is to produce change and movement. A good example the difference between the two is shown on figure 1.2, where is strictly labels the difference between the management functions and leadership roles. Like mentioned above, management is to plan, organize, staffing and control, and leadership is to establish, align and motivate individuals. Again, they both overlap with having to work with people and working toward a

Management and leadership are viewed as two different perspectives in the business environment. As described by Dr. Warren Bennis ‘Managers are people who do things right, while leaders are people who do the right thing’, this means that managers do things by the set rules and follow company policy, while leaders follow their own intuition, which may in turn be of more benefit to the company.

Leadership is just one of the many assets a successful manager must possess. Care must be taken in distinguishing between the two concepts. The main aim of a manager is to maximize the output of the organization through administrative implementation.

Not all managers are leaders and not all leaders are managers. The biggest difference between management and leadership is people skills. In determining if a person is a leader or a manager, Bova (2008) lists some differences with which many a person would agree. One difference is that a manager directs people. Managers essentially tell employees to get the job done. Many people work on autopilot until their work shift ends. However, people will follow a leader. Leaders inspire others to want to strive for their best and to go beyond their normal duties.

The concepts of leadership and management are often viewed in different ways with different theories and schools of thought regarding the meaning of these terms (Gold, Thorpe and Mumford, 2010). Management and leadership can be defined individually and encompass different roles and attributes, however, both management and

The relation between leadership and management has for a longtime influenced how organizations are perceived. It has also contributed to maintain some type of confusion in education and within the organization itself.

For a quick review, the definition of leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group or individuals, to achieve a common goal.