Management and Leadership

Management and Leadership Paper

Management is not leadership just as leadership is not management. In order to differentiate between the two we must ask ourselves which we relate to more, or rather, which we consider ourselves to be by asking the question which am I? Am I a Manager or can I consider myself a Leader? What type of person makes a good manager? What type of personality is best for leaders?

Management and leadership are two notions that may be interchangeably, but there is a huge difference between a manager and a leader. They are two different ways of organizing people; the manager uses a formal method and the leader uses passion. "Managers do things right, and leaders do the right things." (Chapman, 2004, p.80)

Leadership is having the ability to give guidance to those that will follow. It involves both sides of human experience. It includes actions and influences based on reason and logic as well those based on inspiration and passion. Leadership is a social process shared among all members of a group. Leadership development comes through experience. We all learn from our different experiences. Whether positive or negative, they are our tools for growth and development. Management is a position of authority. Management says what need to get done and supplies the material to get it done. Management tends to be the more educated than the experienced. Managers can be trained to hold a position. Management is a position of leadership.

The leadership process is a total learning process. We all are leaders in our own way at different times in our lives. For example a father or mother with children, their children look to them for guidance. They also learn their values and about their culture through them. That is having leadership abilities. Friends look to each other for advice and different experiences that each of them have done. Some people perform leadership acts on the daily basis and don't even realize it until they think about it or until someone brings it to their attention. That's why it's said that a part of learning about leadership is to always think about it. Leadership is just one of the many assets a successful manager must posses, because a manager can manage the process or system but can not manage people. If organizations expect every manager to be a leader, or if they confuse the two roles, gradually they will be falling apart. 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. To achieve this, managers must undertake the four functions of management.

To be an effective leader it is important to focus on the gritty details of a situation, look for opportunities and how to achieve them. Visioning cannot be taught but can be developed. Leadership is all about taking an organization to a place it would not have otherwise gone without you, in a value-adding, measurable way. When you vision, you think your way into a situation and it is the approach in visioning that separates managers from leaders. Visioning however is not the only method that separates managers form leaders. The different strategies used by managers and leaders in terms of their use of human resources can also differentiate for us the major factors that influence each position. Managers are required to monitor, supervise, and get tasks done in a certain amount of time. Managers have to be efficient, and thus time is the most important human resource for them. By improving their efficiency, managers can improve their managerial success. Leaders, on the other hand, must strategically use not only their time, but energy as well. Leaders must carefully plan out strategies they will use to accomplish given tasks because strategy is not the consequence of planning, but the opposite: its starting point. Understand that managers