Leadership and Management

In today’s world economy companies come and go every single day. It takes good strong leadership and management to guide an organization to success. While many people consider management and leadership to be synonymous they are in reality two different concepts. A person can be a good leader but if he does not know how to manage a company that company will be destined to fail. Also if a person had great management skills but lacks in leadership no matter how good he is if he can not lead his employees towards the goal then it is a failed attempt at success. Management is considered a job description whereas leadership is considered a trait. In this paper we will differentiate between management and leadership. We will also examine how leaders create and maintain a healthy organizational culture.

As stated before management and leadership are two different concepts. Wikipedia defines management as “the process of leading and directing all or part of an organization, often a business, through the deployment and manipulation of resources”. In the world of business, management can be stated as a pursuit towards an overall goal that is effective and efficient. Also management is the ability to integrate works from different workforces through planning, and organizing. Ultimately management is a theory that is put into practice by a team to create a successful organization. The individuals in these teams are known as managers. It is the job of these individuals to guide a company towards the goal. To properly manage it takes a set of functions to make the organization successful. These functions that management uses are called the four functions of management. These functions help plan, organize, lead, and control the resources that an organization has. When a management team uses the planning function they are laying down goals and the directions that they take to achieve those goals. It is during the planning function that rules and procedures are implemented that the workforce will adhere to. Next, to properly manage, a management team will need to organize the organization’s human, financial, physical, informational, and technical resources that are necessary to work towards the goals that were laid out during the planning function. Next a management team will need to lead and control the work force toward the goals set before them. It is through these functions that management teams can direct a workforce using the rules, regulations, and procedure created during the planning function. It takes a good understanding of the four functions of management by a management team to create a successful organization.

Now that we have a basic understanding of what management is, we can now examine what leadership is. Leadership is defined in two ways one being “the process of leading”, and the second being “entities that do the leading” (leadership, 2005). Leadership in the business world is the connection between the leaders and the rest of the workforce who they lead that makes management successful. It is through these connections that people can strengthen a company’s workforce to be more effective with the job at hand while also being more focused on the goals that are set by management. Leadership is an ability to get people to follow. An individual who possesses this ability to lead is known as a leader. To have effective leadership a leader needs to give his subordinates a direction to go and be able to motivate those subordinates to go that direction. To be a good leader one must be able to show an understanding of his or her subordinates and not view them just as a resource. It is only through this understanding that a leader can find out what it takes to motivate the workforce to get them to work towards the goals. Yet a leader still must be able to separate himself from the workforce to administer praise or punishment when called to do so. Unlike managers who a workforce must obey , a leader is a person that a workforce chooses to follow. It is very important that a leader never forget that leadership is also a responsibly.

Now since we have the basic ideas how management and leadership differ from each we can look how they are used in the everyday world. A good example is how the United States Military operates. The individuals that are considered the management teams are the commissioned officers. It is up to the officers to plan missions, organize resources, and write up the rules and regulations that the military is operated by. It is up to the leadership abilities of the Non-commission officers (NCO’s) to execute the missions already planned, and to make sure that the soldiers under them adhere to the rules and regulations created by the officers above them. It is the NCO’s that inform the soldiers what the goals are and give the soldiers motivation to pursue that goal. It is also the NCO’s that connect the officers to the soldiers in working