Leadership and Management Comparison

In order to understand the relationship and difference between management and leadership, it is important to understand their meaning. In simple words, management refers to managers. The manager’s primary obligation is to the organization he/she works in. His primary task is to manage his subordinates in achieving the organizational goals using his/her positional power. A manager is considered to be efficient if he conducts the following functions properly:

• Controlling of information in order to keep the subordinates informed about issues which affect them
• A manager is responsible to allocate resources efficiently and decide on the priority of deliverance of the information.
• Managers are in charge of conducting employee appraisals using performance indicators of his/her subordinates.
• They are responsible to provide information regarding the task that need to be conducted.
• They are responsible for managing interpersonal relations.
• Managers need to share their expertise to develop their subordinates.
• The manager is entitled to use his/her power to reward or punish employees fairly and transparently based on objective criteria

Managers require positional power in order to be more effective at workplace. Hence, there arises a need for formalization. Douglas McGregor (1960) described two ways in which employees may be viewed, Theory X and Theory Y. According to Theory X, employees are motivated mainly by financial remunerations. They are by nature indolent, uncooperative, and have poor work habits. Theory X, thus, provides the traditional view where managers are expected to serve a role of providing direction and control to subordinates. Whereas Theory Y believes that employees are self motivated. Three of the main theories of management are Scientific Management (Taylor), Henri Fayol’s Classical Organization Theory (Wood), and The Hawthorne Experiment Approach (Mayo), which gave rise to the classical organizational theory.

On the contrary, leadership depends on the strength of influence; how easily the support and commitment of others in achieving goals is gained. Leadership influence can be related to people and not objects. Influence on people is developed through knowledge of their views and ideas. Some leaders who are positive terms with followers have a positive influence and have the power to modify their behavior so that it can be directed towards the progress of communications between people. Leaders so it by gaining the interest and commitment of their followers and then divert them to accept the leader’s directions and making it appear to be their individual choice. A leader does not require any formal positional power to gain recognition. A leader’s power depends on:

• Their network of follower
• Their personal negotiating skills
• Ability to induce people to communicate amongst one other
• They give praise and don not do performance appraisals
• They involve all in their endeavors
• Posses knowledge and ability to run the business
• Has a personal charisma to lead others effectively

The main potent of the comparison of management and leadership is one of choice. A leader is followed by personal choice but a manger is followed due to formal systemization. We are emotional animals and the commitments we make based on our emotions are forcible.