The terms leadership and management are usually considered synonymous. Many people think that they are both the thing. Are you also among one of those?
Well, I would say that you are a little confused here. You must understand that it is a subset of management. Leadership can be said to be a critical part of active management. Good leadership is a crucial component of management and lays emphasis on building and maintaining an environment wherein all the employees and stakeholders develop and excel.
In simple terms, you could consider leadership to be the potential and skills to influence and drive the team efforts toward goal accomplishment. This influence and motivation may result from different formal sources like the ones that come with the acquisition of a managerial role in a company.
What is Management?
Management can be defined as a science because managers are more of mind, logical, standard and exact. Management includes focusing on the planning of processes within an organisation, organising them, staffing, directing, monitoring and controlling. Management tests or measures employees by their present performance records and sometimes even by their names; leadership evaluates and sees people as having potential for those things that are intangible or cannot be assessed. It deals with the future and the efficiency of individuals if they are provided adequate training or if their potential is fully exploited.
Remember, management is reactive, while leadership is proactive. You also remember that leaders and managers are different in terms of the conceptions each holds that. Besides, the difference also lies in their order, chaos ad psyches. While management function deals with an organisation’s job content or the technical dimension, leadership deals more with and focuses on the people aspect in an enterprise. Leadership is more about verbal communication, while management is built more on the written and formal notification.
Managers are the ones who seek stability and control of the process, embrace it, and instinctively attempt to resolve issues effectively and quickly even before they have a complete understanding of the significance of a problem. Leaders tolerate lack of structure and also tolerate chaos and are usually prepared to delay closure so that they can gain an in-depth understanding of the issues.
It can be said that business leaders have much more in common with creative thinkers, scientists and artists that they do with managers. While managers lay down the structure and delegation of duties within an organisation, leaders provide the direction that must be followed by developing the mission and vision of an organisation, communicating them to all stakeholders, and motivating them to achieve it.
However, all the things that I just noted above do not imply that organisations do not need managers. Remember, both leaders and managers are a crucial part of any business, but developing both causes the need for reducing the focus on strategic and logical exercises in favour of a business ecosystem and an environment that allows imagination and creativity to flourish. Organisations require both robust management and robust leadership for optimal efficiency.
Conclusion
Finally, remember that organisations or businesses are under-led or over-managed cannot perform effectively. Effective management accompanied by effective leadership helps effectively use organisational resources to achieve targets and sets a new, better direction for goal accomplishment. Both leadership and management are essential for corporate and even for individual success.