Leaders and Managers

Leaders and Managers

Leaders and managers are two individual roles with multiple intertwining definitions. In order to be a leader, one must have followers, however; does not everyone under management, follow the managers orders? Therefore, the question arises, are managers leaders? If so, what constitutes as leadership? Obviously, in order to obtain these roles, one must have influence over their subordinates, but does the level of influence fluctuate between a manager’s role and a leaders role? What exactly are their individual roles and are they one in the same? The purpose of this paper is to analysis these questions and to distinguish the differences and similarities between managers and leaders and the possibility of one individual possessing both titles.

Roles

What constitutes leadership? To be a leader, one must have followers and following is a voluntary action. Therefore, in order to obtain followers a leader must be appealing and have focus on his or her followers. A leader must influence and motivate their followers to achieve the goals of an organization. Whether it is positive or negative, “one leader’s influence may cause waves of change over decades and through many generations within a community” (Kamm-Larew, 2008, p. 357). So it comes to stand that if a leader has so much influence, what does a manager have?

Management has been defined as “the planning, leading, and controlling of human and other resources to achieve organizational goals efficiently and effectively” (Jones & George, 2007, p. 5). Managers must perform these functions in order to ensure that the organizations future. Leading is a function that a manager must perform in order to unify the organization and enlighten all members about the impor...

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...amm-Larew, 2008, Vol.153, n. 4). This goes to show that no matter how popular one is or if their leadership is phenomenal, one mistake in judgment can turn the table and soil ones reputation.

Conclusion

Leadership is one aspect of management. One can be a manager, but not a leader. One person can be both a manager and a leader, and sometimes it comes natural while other times it must be learned through experience and understanding. This paper has briefly covered the independent and interdependent roles of a leader and a manager and has explained how a single individual can occupy them. In the same light, if one does not have a people orientated personality, the leadership style of that individual may be weak or even unrecognized. From my analysis, a manager must have a quality of leadership in order to successfully obtain an efficient and productive organization.