Leadership vs. Management: Roles, Characteristics, and Theories

This report delves into the critical distinctions between leaders and managers, analyzing their roles, characteristics, and functions within an organizational context. It explores how leaders create vision, inspire employees, and take risks, while managers focus on setting goals, controlling situations, and minimizing risks. The report differentiates between leadership and management by applying relevant theories and concepts, including planning, organizing, directing, staffing, and controlling. Furthermore, it examines the roles of leaders and managers within Marks and Spencer, using it as a case study to illustrate the practical application of these concepts in different situational contexts, including contemporary, classical, and behavioral management theories. The report highlights the importance of both leadership and management for organizational success.

Subject: Management and Operations Assignment
Write an assignment in descriptive form and around 1500 words minimum.
i. Define and compare the different roles and characteristics of a leader and a
manager
ii. Analyse and differentiate between the role of a leader and function of a
manager by effectively applying a range of theories and concepts.
iii. Examine examples of how the role of a leader and the function of a
manager apply in different situational contexts.
Topic of assignment:
Submitted by: Maryam qadeer
Submitted to: mam sumeen

Managers are the persons in an organization who design
and manage the work of an organization in the direction
of the pre-determined goals and objective of the
company.
For the successful accomplishment of the objectives, the
task of the managers is to develop and establish the
relevant strategies and policies and to plan the working
of the staff and the employees with the aim that they
perform their respective tasks in accordance to the
objectives.
The managers are distributed on various levels in an
organization in order to manage the tasks in the different
departments.
Managers focus on setting, measuring and achieving
goals. They control situations to reach or exceed their
objectives.
Managers mimic the competencies and behaviors they
learn from others and adopt their leadership style rather
than defining it.
managers control risk.
Managers work to minimize risk. They seek to avoid or
control problems rather than embracing them.
Leaders grow personally.
Leaders know if they aren’t learning something new every
day, they aren’t standing still, they’re falling behind. They
remain curious and seek to remain relevant in an ever-
changing world of work. They seek out people and
information that will expand their thinking.
Leaders are the people who get the work done from the
employees concerning the goals of the company.
The leaders play an important role in motivating the
employees through their leadership and communication
skills and inherent in them the vision of the
organization. They make the employees work in a
manner to achieve the objectives.
There are important distinctions between managing and
leading people.
Leaders create a vision, managers create goals.
Leaders paint a picture of what they see as possible and
inspire and engage their people in turning that vision
into reality. They think beyond what individuals do.
Leaders are willing to be themselves. They are self-
aware and work actively to build their unique and
differentiated personal brand.
They are comfortable in their own shoes and willing to
stand out.
Leaders take risks.
Leaders are willing to try new things even if they may fail
miserably. They know that failure is often a step on the
path to success.
Managers rely on existing, proven skills. Managers often
double down on what made them successful, perfecting
existing skills and adopting proven behaviors.
In business world leader and manager are considered same but in practically their functions
are different from each other.
 Managers set vision; mission and objective for any organization and leaders communicate
the vision, mission and objectives with the employees.
 The main function of the leaders is to communicate the organizational visions and
objectives with the employees. The role and characteristics of leader and manager are
different.

The case of Marks and Spencer to Roles and Characteristics of Leader and Manager
Marks and Spencer Ltd is a European multinational retailer shop of clothing running their business
worldwide especially in North America, Europe and in some significant developed countries.
The company has many successful managers and leaders to guide them as it is one of the most successful
companies UK.
The managers of Marks and Spencer develop business strategies and future plans for the organization
whereas the leaders implement those plans according to the design.
Leader of the organization deals with employees and increase their productivity and guide their minds to
meet up organizational goals designed by the managers. Managers of this company improve standards of
performance for the workers each and every time with the situational changes and the leaders implement
those guidelines to bring out best outcome from the employees. Leaders have better interpersonal
communication strategy to convert the policies of managers for the betterment of the organization.
A leader performs many roles in the business organization and managers are involved in doing various
functions in business operation. So, the role of leader and manager are applied in different situational
contexts as follows:
Planning: Planning refers to pre-determined schedule for different situations of the organizational objectives
and goal designing.
Organizing: Organizing of the raw materials and resources are very important to utilize the materials in the
Leaders will focus on objectives which are
developed by managers.
A leader interacts with the employees. A manager
interacts with the leader, leader works with team.
Leaders can influence employees to give the best
outcome.
Managers will develop business objectives for the
organization.
Managers encourage the leaders to motivate the
employees.
A manager gives instructions to groups. Their main
responsibility to inspire employees. Their main function
to develop plans.

Controlling: Another vital function of the managers is controlling. To ensure the performance quality leaders
and managers need to control the situation and the employees of the organization.
There are many leadership and management theories applied by Marks and Spencer Ltd. in their business
operations. The management and leadership theories which are used by the organization are as follow.
Contemporary theory of management: Marks and Spencer Ltd. use contemporary management theory to deal
with higher production cost in current situation. Managers of the organization try to reduce the cost of raw
material by negotiating with suppliers.
Management by objective (MBO): Organizational objectives are achieved by employees and managers of
Marks and spencer with their combined effort. Here managers lead the team to complete task accordingly
related to the standard of performance.
Classical management theory: Classical management theory helps to improve productivity of the organization.
The theory is also known as Kaizen. This strategy does continuous improvement in the production process.
Behavioral theory of management: Transformational leadership is followed by the leaders in behavioral
theory of management. Marks and Spencer applied the theory in their operation management and all the skills
and abilities of the employees are closely observed by the leaders.
Managers and leaders are interrelated term in business environment but they are not same from the perspective
of their function, roles and responsibilities. They have some differences in their characteristics too. Leaders are
the figurehead of the organization and managers are the followers of the organizational goal and objectives.
Organizational improvement and goal setting are done by the leaders to ensure the efficiency and productivity
of the certain organization and managers communicate with mission, vision and objectives and lead the
subordinates to meet them. Moreover, both of them plays very crucial role for the organization to help in
different level of functions.