IMPORTANT RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT
THIS ARTICLE WAS UPDATED ON 27/JUNE/2020
Leadership and management are terms that are often considered synonymous. It is necessary to understand that leadership is an essential part of effective management. As a crucial component of management, remarkable leadership behavior stresses upon building an environment in which every employee develops and excels.
Leadership is defined as the potential to influence and drive the group efforts towards the accomplishment of goals. A manager must have traits of a leader, i.e., he must possess leadership qualities. Leaders develop and begin strategies that build and sustain competitive advantage. Organizations require robust leadership and management for optimal organizational efficiency.
Management is usually viewed as getting things done through other people to achieve organizational goals. The managers may react to specific situations and are more concerned with short-term problem-solving. Management is regarded as related to people working in a structured organization and with prescribed roles. The emphasis of leadership is on interpersonal behavior in a broader sense.
Leadership is one of the many assets of a successful manager. A leader can be a manager but this manager may not be a leader. The most important aim of a manager is to maximize the organizational output through managerial performance. But the leader always seeks and understands new possibilities in the organization. Most of the workgroups are more loyal to leaders than managers.
Management, by its very nature, is challenging, precise, detailed, and involves specific and usually timed actions. Leadership, on the other hand, requires a much broader sense and involves aligning, goal-setting, vision-sharing, inspiration, and an inherent lack of any time criticality. Good management includes aspects of good leadership and good leadership includes aspects of good management. A leader devoid of management skill and a manager lacking any leadership capability will fail eventually. In my opinion, management is a science and can be learned. Leadership, however, is an art. While some of the capabilities necessary to be a great leader can be acquired over time, much of what makes terrific leaders great is inborn or, at the very least, was learned much earlier in life.
Difference between Leadership and Management
- While managers lay down the structure and delegate authority and responsibility, leaders provide direction by developing the organizational vision and communicating it to the employees and inspiring them to achieve it.
- While management focuses on planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling; leadership is mainly a part of the directing function of management. Leaders focus on listening, building relationships, teamwork, inspiring, motivating, and persuading followers.
- While a leader gets his authority from his followers, a manager gets his authority by his position in the organization.
- While managers follow the organization’s policies and procedures, the leaders follow their instinct.
- Management is more of a science as the managers are exact, planned, standard, logical, and more of mind. Leadership, on the other hand, is an art. In an organization, if the managers are required, then leaders are essential.
- While management deals with the technical dimension of an organization or the job content, leadership deals with the people aspect of an organization.
- While management evaluates people by their name, records, present performance, leadership sees and evaluates individuals as having the potential for things that can’t be measured, i.e., it deals with the future and the performance of people if their potential is fully extracted.
- If management is reactive, leadership is proactive.
- Management is based more on written communication, while leadership is based more on verbal communication.
Leadership accompanied by management sets a new direction and makes efficient use of resources to achieve it. Both leadership and management are essential for the individual as well as organizational success.
Traits of an Effective Leader
- Dignity and respectfulness
A good leader respects others. He should not use his followers as a medium to achieve his personal goals. He should respect their feelings, decision, and values. Respecting the followers implies listening effectively to them, being compassionate to them, as well as being liberal in hearing opposing viewpoints. In short, it implies treating the followers in a manner that authenticates their values and beliefs. Being a leader doesn’t give you any rights to treat your followers inferior to yourself. Remember, a leader leads the people by showing them how to work, not by making them do that alone while ordering them what to do.
- Serving others
He should serve others. An ethical leader should place his follower’s interests ahead of his interests. He should be humane. He must act in a manner that is always fruitful for his followers. Taking care of others selflessly is a characteristic of a true leader which inspires his followers to do good to others.
- Justice
He should be fair and just. An ethical leader must treat all his followers equally. There should be no personal bias. Wherever some followers are treated differently, the ground for differential treatment should be fair, clear, and built on morality. A leader should know that there are none of his personal favorites and each of his followers is equal in his vision.
- Community building
He should develop a community. An ethical leader considers his purpose as well as his followers’ purpose while making efforts to achieve the goals suitable to both of them. He is considerate of the community interests. He does not overlook the followers’ intentions. He works harder for community goals. As I’ve mentioned, a leader keeps his followers’ interests before his’, he should listen to the opinions of his followers and utilize them as well wherever needed.
- Honesty
He should be loyal and honest. Honesty is essential to be an ethical and effective leader. Honest leaders can be always relied upon and depended upon. They always earn the respect of their followers. An honest leader presents the fact and circumstances truly and completely, no matter how critical and harmful the fact may be. He does not misrepresent any fact. As we all know, “Honesty is the best policy” and due to this, a leader acts as a role model for most of his followers.
Traits of an Effective Manager
- Leadership
Most companies promote employees that have great individual results. The problem is that a really good salesperson will rarely be a really good manager. The true leader will always be able to inspire trust, delegate responsibility, and provide direction. We cannot have a leader without the manager being able to perfectly perform these three tasks.
While management skills can be gained in time, the natively talented leader will be able to gain all that he needs to be a true manager in a short period. Every single successful business manager out there is a leader that takes the team he manages and makes it work better, faster, and more effectively. For being a good manager, you should acquire leadership qualities, that’s how you would be able to lead a team and make them work efficiently.
- Communication
The manager needs to have really strong communication skills. It is not enough to show that you appreciate your employees. You need to properly highlight what you want from them so that everything would go smoothly. The effective manager should properly decipher, understand, and then relate the vision of the organization to the employees so that productivity is maintained.
If communicators are ineffective, the employees will not understand what the manager tells them. That can lead to so many different problems in the future. The entire team would end up feeling bad since efficiency would be low. Such a chain reaction can have a devastating effect on the profit of any company.
If a manager doesn’t communicate with his team, then the members of the team will hesitate to inform the manager whenever they will face any issues. This deteriorates the quality of the project and eventually, the team will collapse.
- Adaptability
Business rarely goes exactly as you initially envisioned it. A successful manager should have the ability to adapt. This is something that makes him/her effective at the job. If the manager can adapt to unexpected circumstances, the entire team will be led towards more success in the future. This also means that a successful manager has the necessary creative thinking to find a new solution to any problem that may appear. A good manager can adapt in circumstances that are not according to his comfort and this is what inspires others the most.
- Developing other people
You cannot have employees that remain still when referring to the skills that they have. Any financial blog on the internet will tell you that an effective manager will make sure that the employee improves and that he becomes better at the job that is done. Developing other people involves cultivating talents and then motivating them to channel gained talents towards increasing productivity.
- Building Relationships
The manager needs to establish really good relationships with potential clients and employees. Those employees that feel they are valued will always be more effective and will put in the extra effort that can bring in better results at the end of the day.
When referring to building a relationship with the employee, the manager must manage to showcase empathy and trust in the ability of the team. That is something that helps everyone love working under the guidance of the specific team leader. Make sure that you know as much as possible about the employees, their strong points, and weak points. The members of the team, when they feel connected to the manager, will do their best to make him proud of his team.
- Constant Development
An effective manager is the one that knows the problems that he has and constantly works on solving them. Career development is a huge part of career success in any job. You need to develop to be able to lead employees.
If you remain at the same level, the entire team remains at the same level. That manager that manages to continue growing will eventually learn how to use the above mentioned natural talents to make the teamwork great and even encourage that the employees do the same thing. The manager that never develops is bound to eventually lag as he cannot adapt to the market.
So, now we can conclude that the qualities leadership and management are interdependent. None of these qualities exist individually. A leader and a manager both should have these qualities which make them inspire people who follow them. In business, a leader and a manager should inspire people to work efficiently so that the company could reap the benefits of their work.