Management And Leadership Are Are Not Synonymous It’s Two Critical Roles
A manager’s role is to focus on bringing organization and predictability to complex situations. By contrast, the role of a leader is to ensure that the company can successfully cope and navigate through change and other difficult situations. Managers have the responsibility of setting budgets and developing strategic plans. Leaders, on the other hand, focus on guiding the organization in the right direction.
The behavior patterns that leaders use to influence others are known as leadership styles. These behaviors exhibited by the leader can be either directive or supportive in nature.
By properly utilizing both management and leadership skills, organizations can develop effective strategies and tactics to implement change. In this article, I will address the differences between managers and leaders as well as the transformational, inspirational and transactional styles of leadership.
Assessing The Roles Of Managers And Leaders
Although leaders and managers both focus on critical tasks within an organization, they are not the same. Managers gain their influence over others through formal power granted to them by the organization. A leader’s influence is derived from the process of social influence.
One of the main tasks charged with a leader is setting a clear direction for the organization, while a manager focus on budgets and strategic planning. Another task associated with leadership is the ability to align people, whereas a manager is focused on human resources and organization. And a third task associated with leadership is the ability to motivate people, while managers focus on solving complex problems and management controls.
Management’s primary focus is to set and achieve goals within the organization. Managers accomplish these goals by utilizing tools such as forecasting, training, evaluation, organization, monitoring and coordination.
As you can see, leadership and management operate under two entirely different sets of tasks and processes. But what are the most effective leadership styles?
Defining Transformational Leadership
Leadership has been a topic of research for many years, as these people in these positions have enormous influence on an entire organization. Through a style of transformational leadership, leaders and followers are capable of elevating each other in the areas of morality and motivation.
Transformational leaders offer organizations an advantage competitively due to their ability to improve efficiency and performance. They also offer the ability to analyze old problems from a new perspective. They are able to inspire followers to think unselfishly and focus on the big picture instead of individual aims and goals. Not only do transformational leaders have the ability to effect change within the organization, they can also effect change in their followers and social systems.
The Impact Of Inspirational Motivation
Inspirational motivation is a type of motivation that can spark followers’ desire to accomplish organizational goals. This occurs during transformational leadership when the leader influences a follower to engage in proper behavior.
When implemented at its best, inspirational motivation can create a shared vision and insight among the followers. This atmosphere requires the leader to clearly articulate the objectives and show a sincere commitment to the cause.
Understanding Transactional Leadership
Finally, some prefer a transactional leadership style within organizations. This is a situation in which transactions between the leader and follower result in mutual personal needs being met. Transactional leaders differ from transformational leaders because they possess traits that lead to self-actualizing behaviors within an organization by exerting a strong influence throughout.
Transactional leaders are task-driven and unafraid to utilize rewards and punishment to motivate their followers. Also known as managerial leaders (this is the style closest to the role of the manager), transactional leaders believe in giving subordinates clear directives and closely monitoring to ensure that goals are accomplished. Transactional leaders also have a keen focus on group performance. The rewards and consequences of performance motivate and drive the followers to give their best efforts to accomplish the goal.
A Leader Versus A Manager
While management is a career position, leaders are called to lead. People follow leaders out of their own free will and accord. A manager, on the other hand, is in a position of power requiring full obedience from their subordinates. Although managers often rise to power through loyalty, time and performance within an organization, these do not necessarily indicate strong leadership qualities.
Leaders may completely lack management skills, but they can still succeed if they possess the ability to unite followers behind their vision. Despite the fact that many people utilize the words manager and leader synonymously, they are two distantly different processes. I hope a clearer understanding of these different roles and styles can help leaders and managers succeed in defining and sharing their vision with their followers.
Article link -https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2022/05/12/management-and-leadership-two-critical-roles-that-are-not-synonymous/?sh=7f7dc6b757e9