Are Management and Leadership the same?

Are Management and Leadership the same?

Leadership and Management Skills

Leadership and management skills, Are they different or the same?  Leadership and management skills are complimentary but different.  In an ever changing world leadership cannot function without management and management cannot function without leadership.  Leaders are usually not hired but sought out from within a company.  While seeking and training leaders these companies need to remember that having strong leaders with weak managers and vise versa can be detrimental to the company.  It can prove to be a real challenge to find a good match for these positions.  Managers deal with complexity while leaders deal with change.  Leadership has become so important because the world has become so competitive.  This brings major changes that are necessary to compete and survive.  Management begins by setting a direction or vision along with steps for producing this change.  Leaders put the employees in place.  They carry out the directions to those committed to carrying out this management vision.  Mangers ensure the plan by controlling and problem solving.  They monitor the results with reports and meetings.  Leaders on the other hand ensure the plan by keeping the employees going in the right direction.  Managers are responsible for the planning process designed to produce results and leaders are responsible for direction setting.  Now let’s look at personality styles between managers and leaders.  Managers are problem solvers.  They focus on goals, organization situations or people.  They are question askers.  Leaders are passionate not conforming risk takers.  They try to achieve control of themselves first and then try to control others.  There is a perception about leaders and that is they are often brilliant but sometimes lonely.  The attitudes of managers and leaders are very different.  Managers base their goals on what is necessary while leaders aim their goals towards personal issues.  Managers are impersonal and passive towards their goals.

Managers respond to ideas while leaders shape them.  Managers combine people and ideas to establish strategies and make decisions.  They coordinate and balance opposing views.  They focus people on ideas and raise their expectations.  Leaders on the other hand excite people with their visions and then they develop choices.  Managers are often viewed by peers as the manipulative, detached, uncaring individual while the leader is empathetic and caring individual.  Here again we come back to the manager has a vision and the leader has to align this vision.  Managers focus on how to get things done while the leaders focus on getting it done.

Now I am going to talk about self identity of managers and leaders. First let’s discuss mangers.  Managers have reported that their lives have been pretty easy since birth and the adjustments have been straightforward.  They have a sense of self which they use as a guide to conduct themselves.  This comes from feeling at home with their environment.  They see themselves as conservators and regulators.  They also report that their roles agree with their ideas of their jobs expectations.  Now leaders have reportedly not had an easy time with life.  They constantly struggle to find a sense of order.  They don’t take anything for granted in their lives.  They will work in organizations but not join them.  They report that their sense of self is independent of work roles.  They display a life development process which focuses on personal mastery.

The different functions of a manager and a leader, a manager coping with complexity and a leader coping with change shapes the characteristics of management and leadership.  While mangers and leaders are not magicians, managers have a tough job of gathering and analyzing information and leaders are strategic thinkers who are willing to take risks.