Leadership vs. Management: A Comparative Analysis for [Course Code]

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MANAGEMENT AND OPERATIONS
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TASK 1 LEADERS AND MANAGERS: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS
DIFFERENTIATING ROLES AND CHARACTERISTICS OF A LEADER AND
MANAGER
MANAGEMENT is a group of activities which are wrapped around the organisational goals and
objectives in a way that the approach towards those activities is kept productive and optimized.
Management is a set of responsibilities which are necessary to address for the smooth and
flawless working of the organisation. A manager is a person who understands and accepts these
responsibilities and uses its skills and competencies to create an effective and efficient work
environment. Management is evidently a significantly large tern to be encapsulated in some
two-line definition. A manager is a person, whom according to his capabilities is able to achieve
the company's vision with great finesse and by manoeuvring in different fields of knowledge
and skills.
Some of the basic management responsibilities involve developing and nurturing an amiable
and at the same time efficient working environment, finding problems in different sections of
concerned functions and creating a suitable strategy to address them, keeping company's
operations and activities in line with company’s objective and goals, understanding and
managing change.
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LEADERSHIP is a holistic approach to inspiring and encouraging people under its influence to
guide them on to a better path which also coincides with the company's vision and mission.
Leaders are the people who make the vision and mission statement of a company. It is a way of
understanding people regardless of what the company want from them and guiding towards
what they can do for the company in their better self. Leadership is not defined by some
position in the organisational hierarchy or a specific pay grade, but it is a concept by which one
can evince characteristics of another person in a proactive approach with coherent and
strategic steps to foster a strong will of self-development and progress which ultimately gets
aligned with organisational vision. A leader should possess some basic characteristics effulgent
of which could define honesty and integrity of actions. Leaders are the vision and creative
engine of any organisation and they are the elements which not only work as an example but
also an inspiration to those who possess the same vision and approach.
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SOME KEY DIFFERENCES BETWEEN LEADERS AND MANAGERS:
LEADERS MANAGERS
 Leaders are the one who sees the
company's future based on its current
growth and functioning and then creates
a picture for a better one with the
planned introduction of changes (Arruda,
2016).
 Leaders understand and embrace
changes, they are the one who always
tries to find the best in every situation
and encourage people to focus on that
only while dealing with negative aspects
by themselves.
 Leaders are unique in their personality
and actions, they create an impression
through their actions and decisions and
people follow them.
 Leaders are risk takers and a real
entrepreneur in their spirit. They are
open to new ideas and always try to
address a problem with an innovative
approach.
 Leaders are often recognised by their
distinctness in vision towards company
and society. They always think long term
for the future benefits and growth of
everyone around them.
 Leaders don’t give up easily. They fight
 Managers are the employees of an
organisation and are mainly concerned
with planning and structuring and
maintaining tasks and align them towards
the organisational goals and objectives.
 Managers work according to their goals
and responsibilities, they do optimization
of every operation in order to save
resources and increase efficiency at the
same time.
 Managers try to imitate and compete
with leaders; they learn and evolve into
leaders of their own calibre.
 Managers work within a system as its part
and are responsible for its performance
and results. They are there to maintain
the status quo.
 Managers work on short term goals and
create their plans according to that. They
work mostly on a project basis for a given
amount to time.
 Managers have employees and they
provide necessary direction to their
employees so that they could cover their
part in organisations progress.
 Managers are dedicated to their systems
and processes and their sole focus
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with their all resources in hand and take
every challenge as their prime job or
responsibility.
 Leaders are initiators; they don't hide
from the competition they are the one
who starts it.
 Leaders create fans and are followed by
people as a source of inspiration.
remains towards the sustainability of
them.
 Managers use an authoritarian way of
conducting their businesses. They
exercise their power on people to get the
work done.
The understanding of the difference in leadership and management can be made with the
desired effect only if one tries to find and understand the origin of the concept of the great
leader and an efficient manager. A great leader, According to the famous “The Great Men
Theory” are evolved as a result of the impression that has been created by contemporary great
leaders or the great leaders of old times like Abraham Lincoln, Alexander The Great, Mahatma
Gandhi, Napoleon Bonaparte etc. They are the one who led their people from great challenges
and tragedies into a better future by using their unique style and capabilities.
The best example of a great leader of current times is the Founder and CEO of SpaceX, Elon
Musk. He has a great vision for not only his company but the whole of mankind and his efforts
are live proof of it. He holds citizenship of three different nation namely South Africa, Canada
and the USA and has started a great many companies as a start-up and become Bilinear in a
considerable short period of time. According to him, a good manager when starts to have its
own vision and ambitions and starts to care for other’s vision and goal; evolves as a leader. A
leader is not born but is forged in hardship and in the heat of challenges and complexities in life
and business.
There are many other theoretical works has been done by a great many scholars to create a
more refined idea such as “The Trait Theory”, according to which leadership skills and
competencies are inherited as a behavioural instincts and traits, then there is “Participative
Theory” which is more of an approach to leadership as in, where a leader ensure high-level
participation of his team members in important activates and decisions. Similarly, there is
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another important theory called “The Four Factor Theory” which divides leadership concept in
4 different requirements which should be either inherited or practised by a leader in order to
truly apply the leadership concept on personal actions.
REFERENCES
 Rosenbach, W.E., 2018. Contemporary issues in leadership. Routledge.
 Storey, J., 2016. Changing theories of leadership and leadership development. In
Leadership in Organizations (pp. 33-58). Routledge.
 Rimmer, M., 2018. Elon Musk’s Open Innovation: Tesla, Intellectual Property, and
Climate Change. In Intellectual Property and Clean Energy (pp. 515-551). Springer,
Singapore.
 Kelly, E.J., 2018. Transformation in leadership, part 1: A developmental study of Warren
Buffett. Transformation.
 Lee, K.C.S., 2018. 3 The Great Man and Trait Theory of Leadership. Mastering Theories
of Educational Leadership and Management.
 Amanchukwu, R.N., Stanley, G.J. and Ololube, N.P., 2015. A review of leadership
theories, principles and styles and their relevance to educational management.
Management, 5(1), pp.6-14.
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