The interchangeable use of leadership and management often leads to confusion about these two concepts.
Leadership is not management. A leader creates what a manager should control. A leader visualizes what a manager should put into practice. A leader inspires the people that a manager should keep in line. A leader takes the risks that a manager should implement.
Leadership possesses an innate set of aptitudes, which motivate and inspire other organizational members to follow, to be loyal, and to produce. Leadership qualities are responsible for increased business results both for the organization and the customers or clients that it serves.
Leadership is not required in management. When organizational members work in team formations they do not necessary need a team leader to consult or to report results. They function more as a self-motivated scheme in which each team member is equally responsible to meet the organizational goals, but also to share organizational rewards in equal terms.
Leadership is responsible for own behavior but also for the behavior of the followers. Leading by example is a process that a manager may be involved in but not to the extent a leader is. A manager would have to “lead” a smaller team, not the whole organization. So, the complexity of leadership is rather associated to the cognitive aspects of organizational members (if and how much they resist to organizational change and why) than to the routine elements of management.
Management is not leadership. A manager performs the duties that a leader crafts. A manager copes with the complexity that a leader sets as organizational direction. A manager aims to sustain a competitive advantage for the organization and to promote stability, while being rule-oriented to the leader’s imagination.
Some managers possess some leadership qualities, but this does not insinuate they are leaders. They need enhancement through training and coaching. Within this context, Ongoing Professional Development would target that need, along with Self-Improvement training through relevant books, a career coach, a counselor, or professional organization.
Although there are fundamental differences between leadership and management, confusion still exists, particularly in regards to strategic management. In the process of strategy formulation, the leader decides on the strategies to be implemented by the manager. Yet, statistical data hold that 90% of strategic plans fail because of a strategic gap between strategy formulation and strategy implementation. In other words, the complexity that a manager copes with distinguishes him from being a leader, while it makes him absolutely responsible for effective strategy implementation.
Despite their essential differences, leadership may be regarded as a facet of management anchored by the authority to decide on organizational fate. In any case though, a leader needs followers, while a manager needs subordinates. Any manager can be excellent but requires massive insight to be an inspirational leader. So, in bottom line, although leadership and management may be complementary, still they are distinctively different.
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