Management and Leadership in Action - An Overview

RUNNING HEAD: MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP IN ACTION
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Management and Leadership in Action

Management and Leadership in Action
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Introduction
Management and leadership play a critical role in organizational effectiveness and
performance. These two concepts are taken as the same in most organizations but their
perspectives are not similar. Leadership is defined as the ability of a leader to influence and
motivate others to achieve organizational goals and on the other side, management includes
actions to control and manage people and resources in an organization in order to bring
efficiency and effectiveness business operations. Both leaders and managers are important for
the success of the organization (Nienaber,2010).
In order to understand the concept and role of leadership and management in organizational
success and effectiveness, an organization has been selected that is Marriott Hotels. This
essay will highlight the leadership and management theories, effective leadership style used
in the organization, the role of managers and leaders in Marriott Hotels and tools used by
leaders and managers to manage change in an organization. At last, a conclusion is given on
the role that leaders and managers play in the organization's effectiveness considering the
case of Marriott Hotels.
Leadership and Management
Leadership is considered as the process of influencing others in order to attain organizational
objectives in a way that makes it more coherent and cohesive. According to Vermeeren et.al,
(2014), leadership includes motivating, inspiring and guiding others to pursue their vision.
Leaders have some characteristics or traits that influence followers. These traits of leadership
can be understood with different theories such as trait theory, behavioral theory, and
situational theory. As per the trait theory, the skills or characteristics of a successful leader
are ambition, honesty, intelligence, self-confidence and desire to lead (Bethel,2012).

Management and Leadership in Action
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Behavioral theory focuses on the concept that a leader’s actions and behavior affect to make
the leader effective and behavior can be learned from experience and training. On the basis
of this theory, the leader requires three skills in order to be successful that are conceptual
skills, human skills, and technical skills. The situational theory focuses on the idea that no
leadership style is best suitable in the situations rather different situations require different
leadership styles. This theory states that an effective leader adapts leadership style according
to the situation and this is further classified as telling, selling, participating and delegating
(Stacey,2012).
Management is the process of planning, organizing, managing and controlling the activities in
an organization with the motive of profit maximization and bringing efficiency. The popular
management theories are scientific management theory, fielder contingency theory and
system management theory (Morden,2017). Scientific management theory is a famous theory
of management that emphasizes the fact that “forcing people to work hard was not the best
way to optimize results” rather simplifying tasks leads to an increase in productivity. System
theory focuses on the coordination and harmony amongst operations and departments in an
organization and considers the company as a human body that runs effectively if all parts are
in harmony. On the other side, Fiedler contingency theory focuses on the idea that there is no
one approach of management that can be acceptable in all the organizations rather some
internal and external factors affect the organization (Berry et.al,2016).
Marriott International is an American based company that operates in the hospitality segment.
The hotel chain was founded by Willard Marriott and at present ranked as the third-largest
hotel chain in the world. It has a presence of over 131 countries with holdings of 7,005
properties. Marriott hotel adopts contingency management theory as this provides flexibility