Must All Good Managers Be Leaders?

"Leadership is more about change, inspiration, setting the purpose and direction, and building the enthusiasm, unity and 'staying-power' for the journey ahead. Management

Leadership is a facet of management. It is just one of the many assets a successful manager must possess. The main aim of a manager is to maximize the output of the organization through administrative implementation. To achieve this managers must undertake the four functions of management: planning, organization, leading and controlling. In some cases leadership is just one important component of the leading function. Predpall (1994) said, "Leaders must let vision, strategies, goals, and values be the guide-post for action and behavior rather than attempting to control others". In some circumstances, leadership is not required. For example, self-motivated groups may not require a single leader and may find leaders dominating. The fact that a leader is not always required proves that leadership is just an asset and is not essential.

Prosperous businesses should ensure dedicated frontrunners and supervisors that cultivate, reinforce, and reassure member of staff endurance within a business. At hand is a substantial differentiation concerning guidance and supervision. Generally leadership can be perceived as a perception of communication and business’s visualization, whereas, management can be viewed as achievement of the business’s visualization. It is to my belief that when speaking of leadership and management, the two stands strongly connected, yet equally signify and sustain different assignment and obligations.

Leadership at times can be a complex topic to delve into and may appear to be a simple and graspable concept for a certain few. Leadership skills are not simply acquired through position, seniority, pay scale, or the amount of titles an individual holds but is a characteristic acquired or is an innate trait for the fortunate few who possess it. Leadership can be misconstrued with management; a manager “manages” the daily operations of a company’s work while a leader envisions, influences, and empowers the individuals around them.

In addition, leadership itself can be described in various forms and through the highlight of different skill sets, but the one thing that all definitions have in common is that “leadership involves influencing the attitudes, beliefs, behaviours and feelings of other people” Spector’s work (as cited in Curtis, de Vries, & Sheerin, 2011, p.306). When the skill set of a leader is compared to that of a manager, true differences are noted. Some of these key differences are apparent even in the approach utilized to reach the desired goals. While a manager directs, a leader transforms, a manager sustains and a leader improves, a manager controls, a leader motivates, a manager’s focus is on short-term goals and a leader’s is long-term based, managers ask how and when, while

Much has been written about the difference between management and leadership. In the past, competent management staffs ran effective companies. In light of our ever-changing world, however, most companies have come to realize that it is much more important to lead than to manage. In today's world the old ways of management no longer work. One reason is that the degree of environmental and competitive change we are experiencing is extreme. Although exciting, the world is also very unstable and confused. In an article entitled What’s the Difference between Your Hospital and the Other? Gary Campbell states that the difference between a manager and a leader is that the manager “finds himself quite willing to

For some reasons, the managers’ positions have been seen in a negative way for many years. However, this does not change the essentiality of this position in any organization, especially in business set-ups. There have been a constant confusion between the role of leaders and managers, and what should be clearly established is that these two roles do not share the same meaning. Being a manager does not guarantee that one is already a good leader. However, leaders can be effective managers. This only means that in order for managers to be effective and avoid negative feedback, they should have sufficient knowledge and

Leadership is multidimensional. There is no straightforward way to describe what a leader is or explain who makes a great leader. The description will be shaped by the purpose of the work being done and the followers one achieves. Dye (2010) states that leadership is a “living phenomenon” (p. 14) and supports the need to provide personalization to the leadership style. There is much discussion on the development of a leader. Some believe that you are a natural born leader who fine-tunes those skills through “persistence and perseverance of failures and successes” (Blanken, 2013, para. 5). Others, like Blanken (2013), feel that exposures early in life begin the development of leadership traits, and “education, jobs, and life experiences then shape the leader’s philosophy and psychology” (para. 7). A dominant style might be apparent in a leader; however, the adaptability in leadership approaches allows the leader to be focused on

The objective of this essay is to critically evaluate why followers and public give too much credit or blame to leaders for organisational outcomes. The content of this essay comprises an analysis of what makes leaders effective and how followers view the leaders’ influence on organisational outcomes. I will discuss a number of theories (attribution, contingency, initiation and consideration) and examples of leaders from international organisations; including James Burke Chief Executive Officer of Johnson and Johnson and Tony Hayward Chief Executive Officer of British Petroleum (BP). These leaders influenced their employees, the public and world media and were subjected to credit or blame.

Leadership is like a weighted coin, with a preference for the head of corruption. In fact, many of today’s greatest leaders seem to have long histories of controversy and questionable decisions. Take, for example, the PR company Bell Pottinger of the United Kingdom, which has recently been exposed for facilitating racism in South Africa, under direction from one of its clients (Cheryl). Exposure of this and other company controversies marked the beginning of the end for Bell Pottinger. Had the leaders of Bell Pottinger properly weighed company risks, prioritized their employees, and set a precedent of rules, corruption could have been prevented.

In the article, Kotter discusses that management and leadership are different concepts. However, these concepts are complementary and needed in order for a particular organization to be successful. For instance, management tends to bring about order and consistency to a particular organization. Meanwhile, leadership enables a particular organization to be able to handle change in this volatile and unpredictable business environment.

Out of all the different leadership theories I learned about this semester I really feel that I best relate to transformational leadership and authentic leadership theories. During the development of my personal theory I found that these theories tended to list many similar traits, and values that aligned with my own. Additionally, both authentic and transformative theories place a significant amount of emphasis on the relationship between the leader and her/his followers. The success and influence of a leader comes not from herself but from her ability to create and invoke strong relationships with their followers. Given my character strengths of sociability, integrity, assertiveness, and my drive to connect to others on a deeper level, I value both the authentic and the transformative leadership theories.

Transformational leadership are classified into four components which are pointed out by Bass (1990, p. 28), ‘charisma, idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration’. Apart from these basic roles, charisma leadership, a collection of personal characteristics, has its own role of literature since it has similarity with transformational leadership and they are contribution to each other (Bertocci, 2009, p. 43; Judge & Piccolo, 2004, p. 755). Leaders’ behaviour reflects them being role models for their followers. Followers respect, admire and trust their leaders who have charismatic effect on their followers to an extremely high grade are willing to take risks

Many great leaders have one thing in common and that is charisma. Charismatic leaders are those that have the capability to inspire and encourage people to do more than they would normally do, despite obstacles and personal sacrifice. (Daft, R.L, pg. 364) Charisma is what provokes energy and commitment out of its followers. These leaders possess the power to motivate their followers to do almost anything. They create an atmosphere of change and express an ideal vision of a better future. The most common characteristics of the charismatic leader involve maturity, communication, humility, and inspiration. These unique qualities impact their followers and conduct themselves in such a way that allows for remarkable results. Then

Lastly, the Jack Welch quote “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others”. — Jack Welch (as cited by Lowe, 2008, p. 88) is a strong message for a charismatic leadership style. Leadership style reflects on its subordinates, and a bad leader is a toxic leader that pollutes an organization and the pollution reflects on the followers. A good leadership radiates the quality of a leader, which in turn develop and grow others to be as good as their