Management and Leadership
On the one hand, management is defined as a strategic process followed to help profit-making, non-profit making, or governmental organizations achieve their goals in a coordinated manner. Management performs the functions of planning, controlling, organizing, and directing business activities to meet the objectives (Galoji, 2017). The staff carrying out the management process are referred to as managers. On the other hand, leadership is the process of guiding people, training them, and equipping them with the knowledge to improve personal progress and business by influencing their attitude and performance. Leadership is a skill that takes time to learn but eventually changes people’s attitudes towards work. It often answers “What should be done?” and not “Who should do the work?”.
Similarities
Management and leadership share some common characteristics that make them appear as common fields in businesses. Both management and leadership are aimed at making the business succeed in its endeavors. They promote the performance of employees and give the business a sense of direction. Management and leadership focus on solving future outcomes of the events in the business and can release the workers’ potential by demanding more from them. Organizations should involve both systems in running their projects.
Differences
Despite the similarities, the two organizational running strategies are unique in some aspects. Whereas management involves giving direction to subordinates, leadership involves identifying areas of concern from employees and involving them in decision-making to get the best outcomes. Management ensures conservation of both quality work and better performers while leadership encourages and motivates their followers to become what they are expected to be and to provide goods and services of high quality. Management reacts to changes in the environment, but leadership formulates the changes in the industry. For instance, management would respond to technological changes by embracing the latest technology in place. On the other hand, leadership would take up the moral duty of encouraging the employees to develop new technology to facilitate their operations.
Warren Bennis’ Quote
The quote implies that becoming a leader is simple and difficult because to become successful as an individual, one has to recognize personal areas of strength, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, generally referred to as SWOT analysis. Identifying the SWOT analysis is easy, but adapting to these conditions is quite difficult because they keep varying with time. Thus, to be an effective leader, just like above, could be easy and difficult at the same time.
Reference
Galoji, S. (2017). The mediation effect of effective leadership behavior on the relationship between leadership self-efficacy and managerial job performance. International Journal of Business Administration and Management Research, 3(4), 19. Web.