Management and Leadership

Paper Summary:

The paper discusses the differences between leadership and management and states that they are dramatically different. The paper adds that the consensus of many leadership and management researchers, is that each requires different skill sets to do well, and that leadership is centered on invoking and sustaining worker commitment. The paper quotes one of the world's leading experts in leadership, who remarks that management and leadership have many similarities, yet the most differentiating element is the character of the leader. The paper concludes that leaders who concentrate on pushing responsibility into their organizations rather than hoarding it, create a more effective culture in the long-term.

Outline
How the Four Functions of Management
Recommendations for Maintaining a Healthy Culture

From the Paper:

"What many organizations do however is have subordinates complete surveys where they specifically rate their superior's managerial and leadership qualities relative to an ideal score. Using factor and discriminant analysis techniques to find significant clustering of attitudes and perceptions, researchers are finding that typically subordinates will judge their superiors' managerial versus leadership ability judged from the handling of only a few of the many decisions made during a period of time. Additionally, ratings may result from just one or more salient situations, the supervisor's outward behavior, his or her personality traits, or some uniquely subjective combination according to Lord (2000). Further, the research shows that managing and leading often overlap and conflict in these statistical analyses of attitudinal variables. As a result, the methodologies used for attempting to quantify the differences between managers and leaders are often not extrapolated to broader organizational applications. As Gordon and Yukl (2004) have often stated there is a lack of research rigor on the part of practitioners, a lack of empirical rigor on the part of academics, and differences in the research goals, all of which lead to the multiple taxonomies mentioned earlier in this paper. Gordon and Yukl (2004) also mention that in defining the role of manager versus leader, one cannot completely exist without the other. While psychographic research of subordinates yields the tendency on their part to create quick judgments of a manager's character, integrity, honesty and skill set, those with leadership-like qualities are seen as much more able to define a vision that makes sense for their organizations. This dichotomy of time horizons, span of control, and ability to motivate through a compelling vision over just using their legitimate power is what differentiates leaders from managers, and to the extent they inspire versus demand is to the extent to which they accomplish their goals."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Aguirre, Calderone, Jones (2004) -10 Principles of Change Management. Resilience Report, Booz, Allen Hamilton. New York, NY. Accessed from the Internet on April 22, 2008: http://www.strategybusiness.com/resilience/rr00006?pg=all
• Warren Bennis (1999) - The Leadership Advantage. Leader to Leader Journal. No. 12. Spring, 1999. Accessed from the Internet on April 23, 2008 from location: http://www.leadertoleader.org/knowledgecenter/L2L/spring99/bennis.html
• Dansey-Smith (2004) - Why "soft" people skills are key to leadership development. Strategic HR Review. Fiona Dansey-Smith. Volume 3 Issue 3, March/April 2004. Pages 28 - 31.
• Kotterman (2006) - James Kotterman, Leadership versus Management: What's the Difference? The Journal for Quality and Participation ,Summer 2006. Pages 13 - 17.
• Lord (2002) - "Thinking Outside the Box by Looking Inside the Box: Extending the Cognitive Revolution in Leadership Theory," Leadership Quarterly, Vol. 11, 2000, pp. 551-579. Retrieved April 23, 2008, from Academic Search Elite database.

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