Manager as a Position of Authority vs Leader as a Person with Special Traits - Case Study Example

Management and Leadership Name Class Unit Introduction Leadership and management are two different terms used in an organisation. A manager is a person who is formally appointed in a certain position of authority in organisation. The main aim of the managers in organisation is to enable others perform their duties and are responsible to the higher authority (Wissman, Knippa & Roberts, 2008). The managers’ authority depends on their level in the organisation. A leader is based on the personal quality of a person. Being a leader, there are no formal rights and accountability is not well defined. A manager is seen as a caretaker and mostly interested in maintaining status quo while a leader is visionary and risk taking (Pfeffer & Sutton, 2006). I managed to interview two managers about their experiences of being a manager and a leader. The interview involved asking them the challenges they faced, steps taken with their followers, peers, clients and bosses. One of the managers had been a production manager at a steel mill while the other was a sales manager at a leading global retailer. Howard Peter is a leader with a vast experience in production management. He started as a production assistant product manager before being promoted to production manager when the business expanded to china. He was later transferred to Europe, where he maintained his position as the company production manager. Due to his hard work, he has been able to be in charge of the production sector with more than 3,000 employees under his command. Peter is an Australian national having been born and educated in the country. His first multinational task was in China, where he came face to face with cultural challenges. During his early years in career, he had become acquainted in western and European culture. Mary Parker is a sales manager for a global retailer. She heads a department which consists of more than 1000 employees. She is an American national working in Australia as the head of the sales in Australasia region. Before becoming the regional sales manager, she was the acting deputy sales manager in America. According to Peter, leadership is very different from management. He asserts that he started as a manager before combining both roles of management and leading. According to him, management role is defined by a position. This is a mandate that one is given by an organisation which have its own authority. On the other hand, he defines a leader as a person who gains influence due to personality (Jones & Pound, 2008). To be a leader, one must be able to have character that will make others like to emulate him. Mary Packer describes a manager as a function of management. According to her, management is a person who is accorded the title in an organisation due to the position they hold (Pfeffer & Sutton, 2006). Peter describes his relationship with the employees as close and mutual. In order to relate with the employees, he had to be their role model. To achieve this, he had to show the right behavior and maintain communication with the employees. His good communication skills enabled him to inspire and form a close relationship with employees. According to him, he relates well with his superiors and clients. He attributes this to his personality and his attention to details. Mary Packer sees her relationship with the employees as close. She claims that she was able to forge relationship with employees early in her career through ethical role modeling. She has always been fair to the employees and encouraging them in their tasks. In the organizations she has worked for, she always encourage two way communications. Due to her support and responsibility for others, she has been able to gain followers. She explains that for one to be respected by the employees, it is important to show equal respect for all. Her relationship with her boss is based on her ethical leadership and her ability to perform in different circumstances (Treviño, Hartman & Brown, 2000). Her boss has always depended on her performance as she has shown good results for the period she has headed the department. According to peter, his job has several tough elements. As a manager and a leader, his role is large as everyone looks at him for vision, inspiration and guidance. The way he reacts is reflected by the employees hence he always has to act with caution. To avoid influencing his followers negatively, he takes time to gain self awareness. His role involves overseeing more than 3000 employees in different branches of the company. He has to tour different company facilities and utilize channels of communication that will enable him to reach all the subordinates. He is in some cases forced to launch online discussions in order to reach to all the employees. Mary Packer has to face several tough aspects in her job. Being a sales manager, she has to collaborate with different departments. She is also expected to interact with a diverse workforce. In her roles, she interacts with the marketing department, R&D, Finance department and among others to get her work done. She describes this as a tough job since for her to succeed, she has to get supported by all. She has to speak the language of all departments. She must be able to converse with other leaders in areas where she is not an expert (Adair, Thomas & Adair, 2008). Peter attributes his leadership style to stem from the company and his environment. He asserts that the company modeled him from being a manager to a leader. His company had systems in place to nurture him and evaluate his performance as he progressed. He says that the company had plenty of resources which were to help him to become an effective leader (Kets de Vries & Konstantin, 2011). He learned how to communicate and mobilize a large group of employee while still in the company. Early in his career, the company gave him experience on cross functional projects. He was later assigned responsibility for them. His experience in the firm has enabled him to become an effective leader in the organisation (Jones & Pound, 2008). Mary Packer asserts her leadership style have been nurtured by her ability to lead in diverse workgroups. During her career, she has been working with employees with diverse backgrounds, religion, race and gender. She has been able to interact and learn how to manage diversity as she progressed in her career. She understands well how to lead a diverse workgroup to attain best results. She claims her personality has always helped her to get along with other employees making it easier to lead. She is good in communication making it easy to mobilize the employees and gain followers (Gold, Thorpe & Mumford, 2010). Decision making is an important part in management and leadership (Cooper, 2005). As the production Manager, Peter has to make decisions on the amount to produce based on the demand and reports from other departments. He asserts that he is sometimes involved in complex decision making regarding production. He has to predict the consequences of his decisions in the organisation before undertaking any measure. To overcome the constraints in decision making, he uses his past experience to avoid carrying out a decision that can affect the organisation negatively. Active consultation is always employed at all times (Brown & Treviño, 2006). Mary Packer considers her decision making to be carried out in consultations with other departments. She asserts that she cannot make a major decision without alerting other stakeholders to make an all inclusive decision. Sales department depends on other departments such as marketing hence cannot come up with decisions without consulting others. She is also keen to make sure that the employees are not left out in the decisions affecting them. Her major constraint in decision making is the time taken to come up with the decisions due to consultations involved. She always avoids individual decisions making due to fact that they can easily be affected by bounded rationality. She claims that decision, making for leaders require awareness of the problem at hand, others and awareness of one’s self. Both leaders agrees that decision making requires one to find their passion, know themselves, look for viability and resilience (Carmichael, 2011). In conclusion, the interview with the two managers revels a lot of leadership and management. While management is a position of authority, a leader is defined by the personal qualities. One can be a leader without having a position in authority. It is also possible to be a leader and a manager at the same time as the leaders have demonstrated. An organization has the capability to mould a manager into a leader ass peter have demonstrated. As one rises in ranks, increase in responsibilities requires one to be a good leader. Leaders are expected to offer guidance in diverse environments and help the organization achieve its goals. There are challenges one faces as a leader in dealing with the clients, employees and the superiors in an organisation. The steps taken helps in overcoming them. Decision making is a major role of the managers in organizations. As seen from the two managers, consultations play a vital part as they enable to come up with a good decision which is accepted by all. There is also need to have passion, knowing oneself, look for viability and resilience in order to make a good leadership decision. References Adair, J. E., Thomas, N & Adair, J. E 2008, The best of John Adair on leadership and management. London: Thorogood. Brown, M & Treviño, L 2006, ‘Ethical Leadership: A Review and Future Direction’, The Leadership Quarterly, Vol.17, no.1, p. 595-616. Carmichael, J 2011. Leadership and management development, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Cooper, C. L 2005, Leadership and management in the 21st century: Business challenges of the future, Oxford, Oxford University Press.Bottom of Form Gold, J., Thorpe, R & Mumford, A 2010, Gower handbook of leadership and management development, Burlington, VT: Gower. Jones, C. A., & Pound, L. 2008. Leadership and management in the early years: From principles to practice. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Kets de Vries, M. F. R & Konstantin, K 2011, Leadership development, Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. Pfeffer, J & Sutton, R 2006, Evidence-based Management, Harvard Business Review, p. 63-74. Treviño, L. K., Hartman, L. P., & Brown, M. E. 2000, ‘Moral person and moral manager: How executives develop a reputation for ethical leadership’, California Management Review, Vol. 42, no. 1, p.128-142. Wissman, J., Knippa, A & Roberts, K. K 2008, Leadership and management, Overland Park, KS: Assessment Technologies Institute. Top of Form Read More