Difference Between a Leader and a Manager

“Leaders Transform and Managers Transact.” Is there a difference between a leader and a manager?
Critically discuss.
Every organization has a structure where the duties and responsibilities are divided among a group of
people and all of them are connected to achieve their goals as well as their objectives. If the structure of
the organization is good, it lets the flow of communication and knowledge sharing become easy. If there
is no sound structure, the focus of the people could be lost and they cannot strive towards the
accomplishment of their goals. A poor organization structure may create a situation of confusion where
people aren’t aware of their responsibilities properly and it may directly or indirectly hamper the
performance of the people. To drive this, there are two types of people who are very much relevant to
the organization. One is a leader and the other one is a manager (Connolly, James and Fertig, 2017). In
this essay, let us critically discuss the differences between the manager and the leader. Let’s have a
discussion over the same.
Leaders
Talking about the leadership, it is the quality of a person who has a clear vision and has the ability to
generate the will in the people or workers to do what they don’t want to do and such a person is called a
leader. Leadership has influences and it occurs among people and they want to see some significant
changes that reflect the agenda of the leaders. It is a new direction to the organizations and is relevant
even to the management of the organizations as well. Sometimes the leaders are confused with the
managers. However, both of them are significantly different. Good leaders are not born, rather they are
made. One who has the willpower can really become an efficient leader. They develop out of education,
training, expertise, and experience (Fleischer, 2010).
There are certain things that inspire people to follow the leaders and they are called leadership qualities.
The following are the keys to leadership:
 There needs to be trust and confidence in the top leadership so that the employees are satisfied
with the organization they are working with (Steinberg, 2014).
 There needs to be an effective communication to win the confidence of the people of the
organization
Types of Leaders:
There are certain types of leaders as discussed below:
Leader by Position: These are the leaders who perform certain activities and achieve success and
position in their organization and hence become leaders (Hicks, 2011).
Leaders by Personality: There are certain people who are influencers. People follow them because of
the charm and charisma they carry. Talking about the real life examples, APJ Abdul Kalam was one such
leader who influenced almost every Indian. Such leaders deal with the emotional appeal of the people.
Such leaders are accepted by the people without any questions asked.

Intellectual Leaders: This kind of leader focuses to develop the system and process of the organization.
That leader aims to develop a strong culture in the organization and makes sure that the organization is
running efficiently (Mascia, 2014).
Visionary Leader: A visionary leader is the one who has a long term perspective. The person is oriented
towards his vision and has an interest in politics, economy, or regulations. Such a leader makes sure that
the organization has been transformed to a level that it survives and competes well in the market.
Transactional Leader: Transactional leaders are those who make sure that the employees are satisfied
by providing them recognition so that their jobs can be improved (Zydziunaite, Lepaite and Suominen,
2013).
Managers
A manager is the one who makes sure that a group of people is managed well. A manager is a part of
that group but is still different from that group. Today best managers are always focusing towards the
upcoming future. There is a certain numbers of managers in each organization. A manager is only
considered good if the person has the capability to do his job in an appropriate way (Daft and Lane,
2015). Manager is the one who takes care of the day to day tasks and makes sure that the job is done or
completed timely. They use tactical control so that they can manage better. Managers are the people
who are responsible for planning, organizing, and controlling people in such a manner that the
organization’s objectives are catered to its best. They are the individuals who ensure that the tasks are
being performed by the employees of the organization. They play a major role in the organization as
each day to day activity is to be taken care of by the managers. Talking about the division, there are
three levels of a manager:
 Senior Manager: These are the people who are responsible to manage an organization, establish
a plan, and make the decisions and goals that are in favor of the organization. They are also
having title like Executive Vice President, President, Chief Operating Officer, and Vice-President
and so on. They are also the board of directors who are actually the owners of the company and
make key decisions related to the company (Daft and Lane, 2015).
 Middle Managers: These are the people who are responsible for the work of first line managers
carrying titles like regional managers, floor manager, team lead, project manager and more.
 First Line Managers: These are the low level managers who manage the work of the employees
who aren’t the managers in the company and are required to service the customers of the
organization and producing its products (Jogulu, 2010).
To understand the difference between managers and leaders, It is important to first understand the
difference between management and leadership.
Management
“It is defined as an art of knowing what to do, when to do and see that it is done in the best and
cheapest way”.

Management is a scientific concept and is also an art to get the things done from people. The priority of
the management is to get all the work done efficiently in a stipulated amount of time. Being self-aware,
motivated, knowledgeable are some of the things that the management has to have so that managing,
persuading, and influencing is easy (Mahajan, 2011).
Leadership
Leadership is a little bit tricky to understand as it isn’t an easy task to give someone a set of qualities that
make that person a leader. This is because leadership qualities vary as per the situation being presented.
We have three concepts to consider understanding the leadership. These are vision, inspiration and
followers. However, these concepts are outside the reach of the management. A leader’s role is
explained in an organization as the leader isn’t the one who lends himself to the process of the
management. He is the one who makes and implements the policies for the sake of the management so
that the quantitative objective can be achieved (Pietersen, 2016).
Understanding and Application of theory
Leaders always focus on transforming the process with the application of knowledge and technology
whereas managers are responsible to handle day to day transactions and smooth running of the
process. This is the basic difference between the leaders and managers. Leaders never rely on the same
process even if it is going well because they always focus on making it better. There are many
organizations that are running good and earning good profits, but some organizations really transformed
because of the presence of leaders. The main role of manager is to manage the process and tasks in an
organization. It is not easy for a manager to think out of the box and create some transformation and
leaders are capable of doing the same.
There is a mission with the management but not the correct approach. Leaders are the people who have
the dynamic vision which is needed to achieve any goal. There are a number of theories that pertain to
the understanding of the leadership and management (Tidd and Thuriaux-Alemán, 2016). For
leadership, Trait theory was first developed that said that the leaders are born and not made and there
are certain characteristics that make a leader different from their followers (Mullins, 2007). Leadership
is an utmost importance, Indeed there is no substitute for it. But leadership cannot be created or
promoted. It cannot be taught or learned”. This means that the leadership comes naturally. The position
doesn’t make anyone a leader, their personality, characteristics and traits do. There have also been
studies that were carried out to identify the common traits that are found in leaders. The research was
carried out on the leaders who were successful but it didn’t turn out to be very successful as each
individual is different.
Leadership is a lot more than managing. It is rather related to people who are the decision makers,
opinion creators and carry an attitude. They lead with their words, their values, and it is the primary
reason of the success of an organization (Meyer and Meijers, 2018).