Leadership and Management: Roles, Importance, and Differences

This essay delves into the distinct yet complementary roles of leadership and management within an organizational context. It begins by defining leadership as a visionary process focused on inspiring and influencing a group towards a common goal, emphasizing the importance of technical, human, and conceptual skills in leaders. Conversely, management is characterized as a function centered on achieving short-term goals through the effective planning, organizing, and controlling of processes. The essay highlights the critical importance of both leadership and management, illustrating how managers focus on efficiency and control, while leaders focus on long-term vision and motivation. It emphasizes that managers deal with the complexities in work processes by setting the goals and targets, strategising the steps to accomplish the targets, and then allocating the resources for each step in the process, while leaders inspire and motivate people by touching upon the human values, needs, and emotions to keep the employees moving in a certain direction in spite of the various obstacles. The essay concludes by asserting that a balance of both leadership and management is essential for organizational success, as managers execute the leader's vision, making their combined efforts the cornerstone of achieving goals. This document is a past paper contributed by a student to Desklib, a platform offering AI-based study tools and resources.

Running Head: Leadership and Management1
Leadership and Management
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Table of Contents
Introduction 3
Leadership and the Role of Leaders in an Organisation 3
Management and the Role of Managers in an Organisation 4
Importance of Leaders and Managers in an Organisation 5
Conclusion 6

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Introduction
Leadership and management are two different ways of organising people in an organisation
so that they can be effectively used to succeed in business relationships. Many scholars
consider management to be a function which looks into the implementation of the processes
and systems which have already been established and help the organisation to perform well.
Leadership, on the other hand, is a function that is designed to take the organisation towards
the future making use of the opportunities that arise in different situations and circumstances
(Lunenburg, 2011).
Leadership and the Role of Leaders in an Organisation
Leadership is a multidimensional and complex phenomenon which can be considered
behaviour, skill, responsibility, and a function of the management, ability, style, process,
experience, an influencing relationship, a position of authority, and much more. However,
two very vital characteristics of leadership are developing a vision for a purpose and the
process of inspiring and influencing a group of people to develop a pathway which can help
to achieve the vision (Chemers, 2014).
The leaders in any organisation serve the role of a visionary and a person who is treated by
the others as a role model. For effective leadership, a leader in any organisation must possess
the technical expertise, human skills, and good conceptual skills which can help them to
figure out the complexities of the business and the organisation. Leaders and leadership in an
organisation focus more on inspiration and motivation. The job of a leader is to create a
passion among the employees to follow the directives to achieving the vision, challenge the
present status quo, and develop a willingness to take the necessary risks in trying to
accomplish the vision (Rothaermel, 2015).

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Leadership in an organisation is more focused on achieving the long term goals as the
decisions taken by leaders will have an impact on the business objectives, aims, and
relationships that are developed by the organisation in the future. It is the task of the leaders
to define the vision of the organisation and direct the employees to set the goals towards
achieving that vision statement. Leadership is always looking to develop strategies that can
inspire others to work zealously towards a common aim (Popovici, 2012).
Management and the Role of Managers in an Organisation
Management is a function which is based on achieving the short-term goals and dealing with
the aspects of daily activities and functions. The primary function of management in the
organisation is to exercise control over the work environment to ensure that the organisation
as a whole is moving in the direction of achieving the organisation’s vision. The management
of an organisation comprises the functions of effective planning, efficient organising, leading,
and managing the processes and procedures of the organisation and getting the desired results
from the system and people. Management can be deemed to be more of an analysis which
involves breaking down of the processes and procedures into workable tasks (Algahtani,
2014).
The managers in an organisation carry out their assigned job role according to the guidelines
laid down by the organisational framework. They derive their power to direct the
subordinates from the position of authority that they hold. The main task of a manager is to
ensure that the operations of an organisation are running smoothly and everyone in the
company is contributing as per the job role assigned to them and working towards increasing
the productivity of the organisation. A manager is more concerned with accomplishing the
goals of the company by making the best use of the resources, processes, systems,
procedures, and structure of the organisation. Manager acts more like a problem solver in the

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organisational tasks related to decision making, people management, time management, and
other such functions (Lopez, 2014).
Importance of Leaders and Managers in an Organisation
Both leadership and management are complementary functions which are important in an
organisational hierarchy in the business world. The managers and leaders in an organisation
prepare for different situations and handle the problems in different manners. The managers
deal with the complexities in work processes by setting the goals and targets, strategising the
steps to accomplish the targets, and then allocating the resources for each step in the process.
While leaders start the process of change by deciding the vision for the organisation and the
mission that will give a direction to the strategies needed to achieve the vision (Ali, 2013).
The managers work at developing the company’s capacity by setting up the workflow
processes, establishing the organisational structure, and assigning the corresponding
responsibilities and roles to the employees for achieving the targets. The leaders, on the other
hand, work at selecting the right people for the correct jobs, developing the skills and
competencies of the employees, communicating the overall vision of the organisation to the
employees, and aligning the personal goals of the employees with the organisational goals
(Chemers, 2014).
The managers have to monitor the actual results, identify the deviations, and take timely
corrective action to keep the workflow smoothly running in the direction of achieving the
assigned targets. The leaders work by inspiring and motivating people by touching upon the
human values, needs, and emotions to keep the employees moving in a certain direction in
spite of the various obstacles (Rothaermel, 2015).

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Conclusion
It can be said that if an organisation has to be successful it needs a balance between the
leadership and management practice. To ensure that the vision of a leader turns into a reality,
the tasks and achievements of the managers in an organisation are very important. The
objectives and goals achieved by a successful manager are the stepping stones to achieving
the vision of the leaders within the stipulated period of time. An excellent leader without the
management skills and a good manager without the requisite leadership skills will not be
achieve satisfactory results in an organisation (Fitzsimons, 2017).

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References:
Algahtani, A. (2014). Are leadership and management different? A review. Journal of
management policies and practices, Volume 2, Issue 3, pp. 71-82. Retrieved from:
http://jmppnet.com/journals/jmpp/Vol_2_No_3_September_2014/4.pdf
Ali, A. (2013). How to differentiate between ‘Leadership’and ‘Management’Function in
Organization: A Review of Scholarly Thoughts. International Journal of Economics,
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Chemers, M. (2014). An integrative theory of leadership. Psychology Press. Retrieved from:
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Lunenburg, F. C. (2011). Leadership versus management: A key distinction—at least in
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Issue 1, pp. 1-4.retrieved from:
https://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/comp3120/local_docs/readings/Lunenburg_LeadershipVersusM
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Popovici, V. (2012). Similarities and differences between management and
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Rothaermel, F. T. (2015). Strategic management. McGraw-Hill Education. Retrieved from:
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