Written Exercise

Posted by Winnie Melda on October 4th, 2018

Introduction

            Leadership and management practices were once topics and subjects for television sitcoms. However, the emergence of recent scandals such as the ones concerning BBC, banking sector, and NHS have made the debate about leadership and management up the agenda. Employers and politicians are now inquiring how the private and public organizations should be organized and how the next generation of leaders can be prepared. The most fundamental thing is having a comprehensive understanding of the difference between leadership and management. This is also according to John Kotter, the professor of leadership at Harvard University. There is also fear that employers too often use the terms, leadership, and management, synonymously.

Are all Managers Leaders?

            This is one of the questions that anyone needs to ask themselves before getting to understand the differences between leadership and managers. Some of the people to who this question will be posed will answer ‘yes.' Such people assume that the two terms and phenomena are synonymous with one another. Others are likely to think back to their managers and assess them as people who either they consider a leader or they do not consider a leader. There are some of the respondents whose answer will be ‘no’ because they have heard of the leadership versus management debate previously and know that they are different. Regardless of the response, the question presents some arguments, leaders and managers belong to two separate categories where each has their defining characteristics (Belcher, 2015).

Who is a Manager?

            A manager is an individual in an organization responsible for performing the four functions of management among which include:

        i.            Planning

      ii.            Organizing

    iii.            Leading

    iv.            Controlling

Among the functions of a manager is leadership. A person might then ask if it would be good to assume that all managers are leaders. Theoretically, it is a yes. All managers will be considered as leaders if they can effectively perform their leadership roles and responsibilities of communicating, motivating, inspiring, and encouraging employees towards boosting their levels of productivity.

            All managers are not leaders because all managers cannot do all the items listed above. An employee in an organization is going to follow the directions of a manager for the ways of performing a specific task because it is mandatory that they have to. However, an employee is likely to follow the directions of a leader voluntarily because they have a strong belief in whom they are as persons, what they stand for, and ways in which the leaders inspire them. A manager becomes a manager because of the position they hold in an organization. Additionally, the subordinates are going to follow the manager because of their job description and the title.

            The main responsibility of a manager is performing the four functions of management. Therefore, their core concern is accomplishing goals and objectives of an organization. Managers also are paid for getting things done in the organization. Therefore, the manager is accountable for themselves, behavior, and their employees’ performance. A manager has immense power and authority of hiring, promoting, disciplining, and firing employees based on their performance and behaviors. At the end of the day, management is all about efficiency and delivering results through systems, structures, procedures, and processes available in the organization (Hoffman et al., 2011).

Who is a Leader?

            Among the greatest differences between leadership and management is that it is not necessary that leaders have to be holders of management position. This means that an individual can become a leader without having to have a formal title. Anybody has the potential of becoming a leader because the foundation of leadership is on the personal qualities of the person. You will find that people are likely to follow a leader because of who they are and what they stand for and not because the leader has some form of power and authority bestowed on them by the organization. The leader shows some form of passion and personal investment in the success of their people they lead reaching their goals and objectives which may differ from the organizational goals.

            A leader does not have a kind of formal or tangible power over the people they lead. A leader is awarded temporary powers and authority which is also contingent upon their ability to continue motivating and inspiring their followers. The shift in terminology should be noted in that leaders have followers while managers have subordinates. Followers follow the leader voluntarily while subordinates do not have a choice other than listening to the demands and wishes of the managers. Followers also have a choice to stop if they no longer wish to follow the leader. This also means that if an employee considers their manager as a leader but finally stops drawing any inspiration from the manager, the employee will continue obeying the manager. However, it is because the employee is required by the organization to obey the manager but it is not because the employee would like to do it voluntarily.

            Leadership is about being effective through inspiration, people, and trust. Leaders always challenge status quo that managers spend a lot of their time holding onto to try and bring innovations to the organizations in which they manage. Some of the prevalent features of leadership are (Hur, 2008):

        i.            Visionary

      ii.            Creative

    iii.            Adaptive

    iv.            Change-Savvy

      v.            Agile

In each respective capacity, a manager primary concern is the bottom line while leaders spend much of their time looking at the horizon.

Needs for Future Administration

            The human rights argument is the central theme to the arguments to promote future administration in the correction facilities. This is the premise on which most of the United Standards and norms have been developed. Although it is a core argument, it is insufficient to encourage the reforms in the administration of correction facilities in some of the countries where there is a scarcity of human and financial resources. The most scaring impact of correction facilities on families, individuals, communities, and economic factors need to be considered when proposing the need for future administration in the correction facilities.

Conclusion

            The paper has comprehensively discussed the differences between a leader and a manager. The comments herein are based on research and current theories. The paper has shown that although people use leadership and management synonymously, there are some underlying differences that should be understood comprehensively. However, there are some similarities between leadership and management but which should not be taken to mean they are similar. Additionally, the paper has shown the need for future administration in the correction facilities and why it is required and ways in which it will bring changes.

References

Belcher, M. (2015). A Tale of Transformational Leadership. Public Manager, 44(1), 56-60.

Hoffman, B. J., Woehr, D. J., Maldagen-Youngjohn, R., & Lyons, B. D. (2011). Great man or     

            great myth? A quantitative review of the relationship between individual differences and

            leader effectiveness. Journal Of Occupational & Organizational Psychology, 84(2), 347-  

            381. doi:10.1348/096317909X485207

Hur, M. H. (2008). Exploring Differences in Leadership Styles: A Study of Manager                    

            Tasks, Follower Characteristics, and Task Environments in Korean Human Service           

            Organizations. Social Behavior & Personality: An International Journal, 36(3), 359-372.  

            doi:10.2224/sbp.2008.36.3.359

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