The Differences Between Leadership and Management - Literature review Example

Leadership Name Institution Professor Course Date Abstract A small number of things are more essential to the human action than leadership. Productive Leadership facilitates building of a nation and makes an organization successful. Effective leadership is not only essential to business organizations, non-profit organizations, nations but also in homes. Apparently, effective parental leadership enables homes to grow and children to grow to become effective citizens. The absence of leadership is likewise dramatic in its impact. Without of leadership, firms lose their direction leading to stagnation. In the current competitive business setting, effective leadership is a crucial requirement that facilitates organizational growth, personal development, change and attainment of organizational goals and objectives. Drawing from the available literature, the focus of this report is on leadership, the differences between leadership and management, types of leaders and leadership styles, the importance of leadership and leadership and effective organizational change. Table of Contents 1.0 1.0 Introduction The success of any firm depends on the leader the style of leadership employed in driving the firm’s processes. Leadership and its effectiveness appear to be the most contentious jargon in human use discourse both in private and public organizations. Leaders are often burdened with the responsibilities of attaining organizational objectives and goals. However, the degree to which leaders can attain organizational objectives and goals depends on their style of leadership espoused with respect to the time dynamics. Robust leadership is the stamina of a firm. Leaders establish a vision, promote strategies, make decisions and are the medium for advancing employees’ bench strength to push a firm forward. However, leadership is a subtle attribute and advancing leaders to their complete potential remain a challenging activity for most firms today. This makes leadership question critical for scholars, managers, and researchers. 2.0 Definition of Leadership The term leadership has been utilized in diverse aspects of human life such as social work, academics, businesses and politics to mention but a few. However, each setting has its uniqueness and calls for a different style of leadership. Definition of leadership is important to comprehend the leadership role in human resources. However, a universally acceptable and strict definition of leadership has not yet been embraced by literature notwithstanding the numerous empirical studies carried out by the characteristics and temperament of leadership. According to Rothwell, Prescott and Taylor (2008), leadership is the instance or act of leading. To lead is to direct or guide a firm towards advancement. Leadership is the ability of a firm’s management to establish feasible decisions and motivate other people to perform well. Kirimi (2007) defines leadership as the triumph of a goal through the direction of human assistants. He further states that a leader is one who successfully gathers together his/her human collaborators to attain certain ends. As a result, leadership is the art of influencing others to maximize their performance to achieve an objective, project or task. There is some contention on whether leadership is an art or science. Some scholars believe that leadership is more of an art than science. In this regard, Weller (2004) contends that leadership is both an art and science. The art of leadership calls for the practice of exceptional interpersonal communications skills and human relations. Showing empathy, understanding of psychological and personal aspects of human temperament and being people oriented demonstrate the art of leadership. On the other hand, the science of leadership is based on research. Successful leaders are learners of the research literature; they update themselves through attending seminars and conferences and reading professional journals. More importantly, successful leaders apply pertinent findings to their work setting. As a result, successful leaders practice both the science and the art of leadership. Leadership, therefore, can be viewed as an act of influencing the actions of an organized group in its efforts towards goal establishment and goal setting. Leadership entails leading, influencing, commanding and guiding people. From this perspective, leadership is the influential increment over and above mechanical compliance with the habitual directives of the firm Leaders are determined by their positions, personality, moral example, and power held. Leaders’ activities entail planning, organizing, directing and control. However, these activities provide the basis for differentiating leadership and management. 3.0 The Difference between Leadership and Management Leadership is usefully understood as a procedure of individual and organizational engagement with the change, culture and time that is different from management relationships with organizational processes. Leadership builds an organization while management upholds it through these engagements. It is imperative to understand that a firm needs both leadership and management. Leadership and management are interdependent although persons at each level of a firm are called upon to display leadership characters in order to facilitate effective action. While leadership is the act of influencing, leading, guiding and directing others management entails, forecasting, planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating and controlling a firm’s activities. Planning and forecasting entail looking to the future of a firm and drawing an action plan while organizing entails putting together the activities of a firm and is considered in structural terms. Commanding entails maintaining activity among employees while coordination is a unifying activity. Controlling ensures adherence to established practices and policies. Management and leadership are distinct constructs. To manage implies to accomplish activities and master habits whereas to lead means to influence others and create visions for change. According to Northouse (2010), leaders are people who perform the right thing while managers are people who do things right. While leadership entails a multidirectional influence relationship, management involves a unidirectional authority relationship. While leadership entails the procedure of developing mutual purposes, management is channeled towards coordinating activities to get work done. Managers and subordinates work together to sell services and goods whereas leaders and followers work collaboratively to establish a real change in an organization. Managers tend to depend on systems while leaders depend on people to accomplish set goals. Leaders are concerned with lasting or strategic planning while managers think that daily problems are experienced in their planning. As a result, managers focus on getting work done and reacting to daily events and pressures while leaders focus more on the future of organizations. Leaders establish a vision for the future and create strategies to attain the vision. Managers occupy implementing roles while leaders occupy the influence and guiding role. Leaders serve their followers while managers are served by their subordinates. Leaders establish goals in order to influence organizations to bring change and formulate a different future. On the contrary, managers believe that goals surface out of requisite and are generated in reaction to change. Managers depend on budgeting, planning, and other management tools and avoid taking risks. Leaders, on the other hand, devise strategies and set direction. Leaders empower, people, motivate and inspire them while, management implement systems and performance measures. Managers focus on things while leaders focus on people. While managers plan, leaders inspire and while managers organize, leaders influence. Managers direct while leaders motivate others. 4.0 Type of Leaders and Leadership Styles Different leaders adopt different leadership styles that suit the organization’s values, assumptions, and beliefs. Opoku and Amhed (2015) assert that there are different leadership styles where each style proves effective depending on given attitudes, values, preferences, beliefs and circumstances of people involved. However, effective leadership style is critical to the success of a firm, project or even a nation. Leadership style entails a stable conduct mode that a leader employs in his effort to augment his influence, which comprises the leadership fundamental nature. Besides, transformation, transactional, autocratic, democratic and laissez-faire styles of leadership, other leadership styles include tyrant, task-oriented, production-oriented, joint decision-making, servant and employee-oriented leadership, strategic leadership, spiritual leadership, authentic leadership and ethical leadership. Different leadership styles are suitable in different situations and the style of leadership adopted by a leader hold a major influence on organizational performance. There are scores of leaders all of whom may contribute to a course or an organization. The personality of an individual differentiates leaders. For instance, sanguine personality types tend to be Democratic leaders while choleric personality types tend to be authoritarian leaders. Melancholic and Phlegmatic personalities relate to situational leaders (Opoku & Amhed, 2015). However, with adequate leadership training, any personality type can be shown how to utilize suitable leadership style. Effective leaders believe that people, society, and firms hold untapped resources and undiscovered talents. There are leaders who serve their followers, thoughtful leaders, inspirational leaders and courageous leaders. Some leaders lead based on their position, their personality or charisma, power, ability and intellectual capacity. Charismatic leaders shape their follower’s values. They are regarded as visionary leaders who promote good relationships with their followers to attain the excellent performance of a firm’s vision via personal behaviors and characters. The charismatic leadership style energizes others, accelerate innovation and communicate visions in an organization. Ethical leaders hold characters such as caring, principles and honesty. Ethical leaders communicate with their followers via ethics. They set clear ethical principles, utilizes punishment and rewards fairly. Authentic leadership, on the other hand, complements transformational and ethical leadership characteristics. Authentic leaders are not necessarily charismatic, visionary or transformational leaders. However, authentic leaders incorporate ethical and transformational leadership qualities. They demonstrate a higher moral capacity and are guided by a set of ideals. Visionary leaders establish a strategic vision of organizational future to attain high levels of cohesion, trust, motivation and commitment. Visionary leaders are people who employ a collaborative style for decision-making, seek consensus prior to final decision-making and share issues with their followers. An autocratic leader tends to centralize authority and derive power from the position, coercion and control of rewards. Democratic leaders, on the contrary, delegate authority to others, depend on the knowledge of subordinates and their respect for influence besides encouraging participation. Transactional leads are more reactive and passive to issues, taking action when there are critical issues. Transactional leader’s monitors performance and take required corrective actions. They can instill moral standards in a firm through effective ethical structures given that they hold a positive effect on their followers’ moral personality. Transformational leaders, on the other hand, motivate their followers to perform beyond the anticipated performance levels. They lead by example to influence their follower’s cognitive, affective, emotional and moral behavior through demonstrating positive ethics and qualities. Such leaders make decisions and promote ethical processes, procedures and policies in their organizations. Transformational leaders promote creativity and innovations. Transformational and transactional styles of leadership are positive types of leadership with effective leaders demonstrating these types of leadership (Cole, 2010). Transactional and transformational leaders are more active and they make efforts to avoid problems while laissez-faire leaders are inactive. Laissez-faire leaders avoid decision-making and supervisory roles. This suggests that laissez-faire leaders are not an effective and appropriate way to lead. These types of leaders are regularly absent when needed, and they avoid or delay responding to urgent questions. Strategic leadership is the most suitable leadership style for organizations that implement corporate social responsibility strategies. Spiritual leadership entails a causal leadership perspective for organizational change that is established to create an intrinsically inspired, learning organization. This type of leadership involves behaviors, attitudes and values based on ethics that intrinsically motivate leaders and their followers. Spiritual leadership results from integrity and living every leadership aspect of the core motivating values. The best leaders are those who are stuck on motivating values. They believe in themselves and in values beyond them. 5.0 The Importance of Leadership Leadership is an essential management function that facilitates maximizing of efficiency and attainment of organizational objectives and goals. Leadership helps in initiating actions and communication of plans and policies. It facilitates motivation of employees who in turn promote organizational productivity. In addition, leadership offers guidance, build morale, enhance coordination and establish a conducive work environment. Leadership is the crucial aspect that makes everything in a firm run smoothly. In the absence of leadership, business resources become ineffective. Leaders recognize the concern of their subordinates, and they initiate developments besides creating effective work settings. All successful firms require effective leaders. The leadership of qualified and effective leaders is essential in offering established goals for organizational success. Leaders are very useful in generation and communication of novel strategic directions as well as motivating and communicating with workers to augment their commitment to organizational goals. According to Ribiere and Vorasinchai (2009), leadership is the core of managerial procedure. Its significance is its effective role in all areas of the managerial process because it makes it more effective to accomplish set goals. Leadership is the essential aspect of social interaction. It is founded on the reality that a leader is an individual who influences others and works toward satisfying their requirements to attain the intended objectives. Leadership is a developing and changing factor for employees and their performance in their work setting. As a science that holds its own basics, ways, approaches and philosophy, leaderships promotes organizational success. Apparently, leadership is responsible for failure or success of a firm. It has the core role of setting matters and accomplishing objectives that society or firms aspire to attain. The success of an organization depends on the ability of qualified administrators who manage and control the official use of material and human resources. Strong and effective leadership emphasizes organizational success, orderly and safe environments, promotes high expectations of employees, set organizational visions and goals and plan activities aimed at attaining organizational goals. Leadership facilitates and promotes innovative and creative behaviors among employees that in turn promote organizational growth. More importantly, leadership helps firms in attaining a competitive advantage in the contemporary business environment. Besides, leadership facilitates knowledge sharing that allows people to get the most out of on already subsisting knowledge bases available outside and within the organization. Knowledge sharing promotes creative solutions and allows firms to establish novel blueprints for the development and establishment of novel services and products. Leadership also promotes and helps in change implementation. All forms of organizations such as healthcare, educational and business organizations to mention but a few require effective leadership to facilitate their survival and growth. 6.0 Leadership and Organizational Change Organizations develop and enhance their services, products or systems whenever they can. It is the role of leaders to ensure that their organization continues to grow through ensuring that the firms hold resources, capacity to learn, develop and change. Organizational change is a crucial aspect of an organization growth and sustainability. It entails the process that allows firms to change their structures, operational methods, strategies, culture or technology. Organizational change can be planned or unplanned. Planned change takes place when a firm deliberately tries to make internal changes to attain specified goals while unplanned changes are prompted by external forces such as social changes, economic prospects, economics crises and market forces. Only leadership holds the power to make changes and implement them. In this regard, effective leadership is essential for organizational change. Cole (2010) reports that effective leaders are risk-takers, hopeful, resilient, optimistic, team players, honest, confident, intelligent, aggressive, original, committed, initiative, engaging and sociable to mention but a few. An effective leadership calls for deep human qualities beyond usual notions of authority. Effective leaders understand where a firm is heading to and how to respond organizational challenges. Effective leadership is required for successful organizational change. Before leading a crucial organizational change, it is important that leaders spend some time in self-reflection. The change leader should understand his motives as part of self-awareness. Change fails because of ineffective leadership. However, effective leadership ensures successful change through preparing followers to embrace change. Effective leaders understand the behaviors and attitudes of followers towards change to prevent change resistance. They also communicate the change effectively to the followers. More so, effective leaders understand how to motivate followers to adopt change through building teamwork and acting as coaches in the effort of maximizing the strengths of followers. Effective leaders are positive and goal-oriented when it comes to implementation of change. To prevent resistance to change, effective leaders share their vision and work collaboratively with the followers. 7.0 Conclusion and Recommendation Leadership is the most important factor in attaining organizational success. The success of any business organization or non-profit organization depends to a greater extent on its leadership. There is the need for leaders who can give their firms a purpose for collective goods, a vision and the confidence and courage to innovate. Leadership plays a crucial role in ensuring success in nearly any initiative within a firm. Leadership is all about the productive influence on groups or individuals to attain organizational mission or goals. Different leaders adopt different types of leadership styles depending on their circumstances, personality, cognition and motives. However, it is important that leadership style adopted by a firm corresponds to the assumptions, values and beliefs of the organization. Some leaders thrive while other fails. To be effective leaders, new leaders should seek general advice and counsel, learn and acquire leadership knowledge, and establish new and feasible relationships with their followers. References Cole, G.(2010). Management theory and practice. USA: Cengage Learning EMEA. Kirimi, B.(2007). Successful leadership: 8 essential principles you must know. UK: Rich Brott. Northouse, P. (2010). Leadership: Theory and practice. UK: SAGE. Opoku, A., & Ahmed, V.(2015). Leadership and sustainability in the built environment. UK: Routledge. Ribiere, V., & Worasinchai, L.(2013). Proceedings of the international conference on management, leadership and governance: ICMLG 2013. USA: Academic Conferences Limited. Rothwell, W., Prescott, R., & Taylor, M.(2008). Human resource transformation: Demonstrating strategic leadership in the face of future trends. USA: Davies-Black Publishing. Weller, D. (2004). Quality middle school leadership: Eleven central skills areas. UK: R & L Education. Read More