Difference between Management and Leadership

What is the difference between leadership and management? The question that is often asked nowadays. Read an article below to know the main differences between these two notions.

What Is the Difference between Leadership and Management?

The definition of management we can find in literature: management is the ability to identify, develop and support people so that individual contributions and contributions as a group promote organizational prosperity.

Leadership is defined as an activity or set of attributes which is capable of producing a change and releasing innovation and development.

Although the definition of the leadership may seem much the same as that of the management, these two notions differ. Usually, management is meant to plan, forecast, budget, and control. Leadership has very little to do with planning, budgeting and controlling. A leader and a manager are playing quite different roles.

Leaders Are Special, Aren’t They?

Those who hold a leadership role know that leadership based on human trust is a profitable way to run a company. If there’s no one to lead a team the employees will hardly care about the mission that may be the reason in a further fracturing of the team and losing its steam.

Managers are considered to be a part of the machine. The manager’s job is to run a machine, a company etc. while that of the leader is to give an energy to his or her team to achieve the mission.

Here are the main differences between a leader and a manager:

1. Managers create aims – leaders create visions.

Leaders activate people to work together in order to accomplish the tasks set. Managers set and measure the goals.

2. Leaders deal with changes, managers are a part of a system.

Even if things are working well, leaders aim at changing them in such a way to make them work better, sometimes making waves. Managers try to make processes and structures work better.

3. Leaders take risks, managers control them.

Leaders are not afraid of failures as they know that any failure may lead to success. Managers work to control and minimize the risks.

4. Leaders are constantly learning something new, managers rely on their skills and experience.

Leaders know that it’s rather important to learn something new to succeed, they seek for people that will expand their mind and thinking. Managers mostly improve their existing skills.

Managers are considered “rational”, “analytical”, “structured”, “persistent”, and “tough-minded”. Good leaders inspire creativity and are good motivators. Good managers inspire competence and discipline.

Leadership as a Matter of Perception

The difference between leadership and management is a contrived one, and we could perhaps dismiss the problem with that except for one troubling little fact: in real-life organizations, there are clearly people who are more effective in positions of authority than others – who are actually better leaders than other people in exactly the same clearly-defined organizational roles.

The position of authority is perceived – by both the person having it and by his subordinates – as conferring some special qualities on the leader so that even very ordinary activities are considered somehow special. For example, small talk among coworkers is just small talk; small talk between the “leader” and “follower”, however, is “inspiring” or “motivating”.

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