Leadership and Management.
Introduction
The changes of the work environment are rapid and constant. Our times call for managers to be leaders. They should inspire a vision to the organizations culture. They should know how to motivate and be trusted by their employees.
Throughout this assignment one may actually notice that being a good leader does not necessarily mean that he is a good manager. Whereas a good manager is able to sustain and develop a successful organization a good leader is not able to manage. On the other hand a good leader is able to influence and motivate and provide employees with a vision whereas the manager relies on details, facts and the well being of the entity of the organization.
Moreover leadership is an art that can be developed and practiced over the years of work-experience. Management is a science. It has rules that guide you all the way through difficult situations. From the starting point up to the finish line.
Today's competitive environment calls for both. A vision as well as details. A "dream" as well as actual results
Unit I
Leadership and Management
Leadership
In an attempt to summarize all the various definitions about leadership we can say that "Leadership in business is the term used to describe the process through which a manager or a member of a work group can influence the actions, the beliefs and the performance of people, individually or collectively, in order to effectively achieve the organizational goals."
Throughout the years there has been a constant development of approaches on the matter, in order for the organizations to better understand the role of the leader within the workplace; and in an effort to configure the extend to which a leader can influence the performance of a workgroup.
Three of them are consider being the most important:
Trait Spotting:
According to this, there are several basic common characteristics of the leader's nature and personality, which identify him from the rest of the group. According to Roberts Wess these traits are: loyalty, courage, desire, emotional stamina, physical stamina, empathy, decisiveness, anticipation, timing, competitiveness, self-confidence, accountability, responsibility, credibility, tenacity, dependability and stewardship. (1989,pp17-21)
Style Counselling: which is an effort to examine several different styles of leadership, according to their concern for people or production, and basically argues that a "considerate, participative, democratic and involving leadership style is more effective that an impersonal, autocratic and directive style" (A.Huczynski & D.Buchanan, 2001, p715)
Context Fitting or Contingency Theory:
According to this approach in order for a leader to succeed, he must adjust his managerial behaviour so as to comply with the internal and external business environment. This approach actually declines the importance of style counselling and personality traits.
A very interesting approach on leadership, which was published in the Leadership and Organization Development Journal by John Nicholls (1994, p 8-15) identifies 3 aspects of leadership: The Inspirational (heart), The Strategic (head) and The Supervisory (hand)
The Inspirational Leadership (heart)
This aspect of leadership states that according to the situation there's a chance for anyone who holds "strong, clear, ideas and determination to become a leader" (J.Nicholls,1994,p11). It is mainly based on the ability of the inspiring leader to approach people's heart and mind.
The Strategic Leadership (head)
This aspect of leadership mainly focuses on creating an effective and profitable organization. The author identifies "path finding" and "culture-building" as the principle component of strategic leadership "Through path-finding, the leader relates the organization to the business environment. At the same time, through culture-building people are being drawn into membership of the organization. The organizational leadership role is to determine where the organization is going and what sort of organization it wants to be" (J.Nicholls,1994, p11)
The Supervisory Leadership (hands)
This aspect of leadership states that the manager must instinctively adjust his managerial style according to the capabilities of his subordinates and the demands of the specific job. He suggests that, the leadership style must be adjusted to "the level and proportion of activity in the task and reshaping of relationships (J.Nicholls,1994,p12)
It is J.Nicchols opinion that Strategic and Supervisory Leadership are the managerial aspects of leadership that are inherent in any managers' nominal position and those who fail to recognise their importance are nothing more than ordinary administrators
Management
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The Supervisory Leadership (hands)
This aspect of leadership states that the manager must instinctively adjust his managerial style according to the capabilities of his subordinates and the demands of the specific job. He suggests that, the leadership style must be adjusted to "the level and proportion of activity in the task and reshaping of relationships (J.Nicholls,1994,p12)
It is J.Nicchols opinion that Strategic and Supervisory Leadership are the managerial aspects of leadership that are inherent in any managers' nominal position and those who fail to recognise their importance are nothing more than ordinary administrators
Management
One of the things that I can easily remember from the early stages of my academic years is my first meeting with my personal tutor and counsellor Dr.George Kalagiakos at the National Bank Business College in Greece. I remember myself being so confused with the exact term of the word management that I asked him to describe to me what exactly is that managers do. His answer more or less was that we owe much of the progress of today's world to effective managers. These are people who know how to do the right and profitable for the organization things no matter the cost. He went on to say that a manager plans for the future, motivates, sets and meets objectives and always praises the efforts of his subordinates. Management is a science as well as a technique.
I wouldn't like to expatiate more on the term, as its details will become more apparent on the following unit. The above paragraph already gave us a general idea of what management is about.
Unit II
The differences between Leadership and Management
In this unit I will try to explain the differences between leadership and management as pointed in several textbooks and Internet resources so as to make my discussion in the following unit easily comprehensible.
Leadership is about inspiring people. Is about the creation of a vision. A leader can either be appointed to a position or emerge from a work group and influence people without using the power of his nominated position. Managers are mostly appointed and they are given the power to praise or punish. He uses his nominated position as an authority and means to control people.
The leader is an "instructor" and has a positive effect on others. He is always available for everyone; he gives advices and has a contagious enthusiasm.
The manager is invisible. He simply gives commands to the personnel, and in a way he is almost inaccessible to them.
Most of the times managers tend to think of their personal gains after fulfilling a job while leaders consider highly their subordinates well being and the ways they can be appraised.
Few years ago I read in a "Ta Nea" newspaper a very interesting article by Antonis Feloukas. According to it Leader is the one who always remains humble, decisive, fair and persistent. The example that he discussed was that of Wellington and his decisive battles against the French army. It went on to say that despite the goriness of Wellington's achievements he always gave the credit to his army. He had the strength to take difficult decisions and face coincidences. And at the end, despite his amazing victory at Waterloo he remained humble by stating that he did what anyone else would do in his place. These four characteristics that in the authors opinion characterize Wellington as a leader can be recognised in the 21st century business-leader. We can argue that this is where the 21century business-manager lacks. One may describe his figure as vain, sometimes hesitant or undecided (i.e. on all those cases that he assigns the judgement of difficult decisions to committees and special advisers) and fair mainly to those above him in the hierarchy of the organisation.
Another very interesting example drawn this time from my personal experience was the head of the department in the company I used to work for. He was a very trustworthy man, who knew and remembered the names of all the staff, he always had his way of making things happen or even more, made difficult tasks look simple. Furthermore in several occasions he wouldn't hesitate to do someone else's job in the office. This is the person that we recognized as a leading figure in the company. Once I was discussing with a friend who made some very negative remarks of his manager. He complained that his superior would always remember his name wrongly, he would give instructions to his subordinates even for the simplest tasks which all knew how to handle and that he would never get out of his office but only in very serious circumstances. This manager totally lacked of any leadership characteristic. He wouldn't permit his subordinates to take the slightest of initiative ruining the possibility of motivating them even in this way. Textbooks describe these kinds of managers as unreachable and very detail oriented.
In addition Mr and Mrs Tziortzaki describe a number of riveting differences in an example table. According to it "the leader is stable and reliable, open-minded, keeps his promises and you will probably find him in a simple decorated office. On the other hand the manager is unstable, secretive, he 'forgets' to keep his promises, trusts only documents and you will probably meet him in a luxurious office (1999 p275).
Warren Bennis in an article on the internet1 sites John P. Kotters distinction between management and leadership as published in his book A Force for Change: How Leadership differs from Management. As he states "management is more formal and scientific than leadership. It relies on universal skills such as planning, budgeting and controlling. Management is an explicit set of tools and techniques based on reasoning and testing that can be used in a variety of situations. Leadership requires eliciting cooperation and teamwork from a large network of people and keeping the key people in that network motivated, using every manner of persuasion. Leadership, in contrast to management, involves having a vision of what the organisation can become." The same article goes on to site Doug Richardson opinion on the difference between leadership and management. He believes that "leadership is the ability to inspire confidence and support among the people who are needed to achieve organizational goals. Management is the process of setting and achieving the goals of the organization through the functions of management: planning, organizing, directing (or leading) and controlling. Thus leading is a major part of a manager's job. Yet a manager must also plan, organize and control. Generally speaking, leadership deals with the interpersonal aspects of a managers job, whereas planning, organizing and controlling deal with the administrative aspects. Leadership deals with change, inspiration, motivation and influence. Management deals more with carrying out goals and maintaining equilibrium."
Unit III
A discussion on the differences between Leadership and Management
In contrast to management, one can give his own explanation of the word leadership. Since leadership is not a specified science one can define the term according to his own personal criteria, beliefs and judgment. But not all people can be influenced at the same extend, or from the same occasions or even from the same special characteristics of a leader. So I find it difficult to compare and discuss the differences of a rather general idea to something specific and granted as the science of management. For this reason in order to make the discussion I take as granted several cases where the leading figure can be identified from the majority. For instance a successful manager who just saved his company from bankruptcy, or a person who has the ability to motivate and influence some of his colleagues or subordinates, or finally someone who has managed to create a world leading company.
Management is a science. It is about control and making things happen through others. Its targets and objectives are very specific towards the organizations prosperity, the satisfaction of it's customers and the well being of it employees.
In order to make the concept of my discussion clearer and easier to understand I would like to divide my conclusions in 3 small sub-units.
.A clarification of the relationship between them
When I first started thinking about the assignment I had in my mind a linear relationship of those two. In a way that leadership is often the continuity of management. After reading a number of very interesting thoughts and ideas I concluded that the way these two react to each other is more like, managerial skills being the circle and leadership being its centre. Leadership evolves and grows inside the circle. The thing that makes this small centre evolve is knowledge and experience. I would like to vindicate my belief by sitting an abstract from Kotter "A few of the leadership attributes do seem to arrive at birth: some basic mental and interpersonal capacity, and perhaps some physical capacity that is related to energy level. Furthermore, a few of the other attributes build off this native capacity (e.g. some intellectual skills would not develop without some minimum intellectual capacity). Nevertheless, the old homily "leaders are born, not made" gets little support from this analysis, because most of the items [attributes] comes after birth and are not deterministically a function of natural abilities...A large number of the items are developed on the job as a part of one's post educational career. Almost all the knowledge, relationship, and background requirements fit this generalisation. Some of the skills, abilities and motivation do too." (1988 p33-34). I consider leadership as "obligation" of every manager. The higher he is in the hierarchy of an organization the higher are the chances that the manager has developed some sort of leadership characteristics. Leadership can be considered as an art, which should be practised, studied from experience and developed.
2.Two different terms
Management is a science. There are rules according to which a manager plans. Textbooks are offering a wide range of ways that organizational problems can be dealt with and offer specified ways to correctly administer a company.
Leadership is not a science. It does not even imply correct administration. What leadership is really about is influence. Having the ability to command people without using the power of ones position in hierarchy. With leadership you achieve job satisfaction and highly committed employees. But according to H.Drummond "there is virtually no evidence to suggest that job satisfaction affects productivity, or, that highly committed employees perform better, or, that leadership personality, style or behaviour influences organizational effectiveness." (2000 p89)
So what is the actual gain of being a leader in the eyes of your employees? On the other hand, from efficient management you can expect actual, evident and sure progress of the organization. All the scientific textbooks of management offer ways to motivate, plan, focus, set goals, ways to achieve them, helpful hints to take difficult decisions, offer job satisfaction to the employee, manage change and development.
If actually the managers practised exactly the things that they were taught they would at the same time fulfil the need for leadership.
I agree with John Nichols Strategic and Supervisory Leadership but at the end isn't that what obviously an efficient manager has to do in order to be successful?
3.The difference in focus
Business Administration is about details whereas leadership is about a vision. The rapidly changing business environment calls for managers with leadership characteristics, for administrators with the characteristics of a leader, who will be visionary and capable to influence the individuals to become more effective. Special people who will coach, mentor, and be a good role model. The fact that the organisation must be flexible whilst focused on the long term as well as the constant threat of new entrants calls for someone with strategic thinking. For the administrator everything is about control and organizing. According to Maccoby (2000) leadership is a relationship. It is about motivating coaching and building trust. On the other hand business administration is focused on planning, budgeting evaluating and facilitating.
Summing up these three conclusions we can say that the pattern in which leadership and management react to each other is like management being the circle and leadership being its centre. It is the obligation of every manager to be at the same time an inspiring leader. Being an efficient manager has actually proved to bring successful for the organization results whereas being an inspiring leader has not yet proved its importance. So an organization can progress if its manager is efficient but cannot progress, if its manager only relies to leadership characteristics. Leadership is an art that can be obtained and learned via experience. It is the difficulties via the years that one would face that will transform him into a leadership figure. In addition I consider leadership as nominal obligation of each and every manager. This is why in my 3rd conclusion I differentiate the term managers from administrators. A manager should be a leader. Should be able to inspire and motivate without using his power. He should be visionary whereas at the same time very detailed oriented.
I would suggest that a word like Managementship or Leaderment should describe the actions of the 21st century manager, because our times calls for managers to be leaders.
Bibliography
Books
Helga Drummond (2000), Introduction to Organizational Behaviour, Oxford University Press
Robert P. Vecchio (2000), Organizational Behaviour (4th edition), Harcourt College Publishers
Robert F. Grattan (2002), The Strategy Process (A Military-Business Comparison), Palgrave Macmillan
Andrzej Huczynski & David Buchanan (2001), Organizational Behaviour an introductory text (4th edition),Prentice Hall
J.P. Kotter (1988), The Leadership Factor, Free Press New York
K.Tzortzakis & A.Tzortzaki (1999), Organosi k Diikish (Business & Management), Rosili
Articles
John Nicholls (1994) "Leadership: The Heart, Head and Hands" Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol 15, Number 6 pp 8-15
Scott E. Drouillard & Brian H.Kleiner (1996) Management Development Review, Vol 9 Number 5,pp 30-33
Internet Resources
(2003,5th November) Richard H.G Field Leadership Defined: Web Images Reveal the Differences between Leadership and Management http://www.bus.ualberta.ca/rfield/papers/LeadershipDefined.htm
(2003,5th November) Management vs Leadership
http://www.tmag.co.uk/articles/APR957.html
(2003,5th November) Rick Joyner Leadership, management and the five essentials to success
http://www.forerunner.com/forerunner/X0364_Leadership.html
(2003,5th November) Olan Hendrix Management that leads
http://www.olanhendrix.com/articles/manageleads.html
http://www.olanhendrix.com/articles/manageleads.html
