Analyzing the Misconception of Leadership as Mere Task Delegation

This report critically analyzes the common misconception that leaders merely delegate tasks. It integrates research from credible sources to debunk this myth, highlighting that leadership extends far beyond delegation. The analysis reveals that effective leadership involves inspiring, motivating, directing, and creating, ultimately fostering teamwork and aligning organizational elements to achieve strategic vision. The report emphasizes that leaders play a crucial role in managing change, building teams, and ensuring the proper functioning of all departments, showcasing a multifaceted role that goes beyond simply assigning tasks.

Student name
INSTITUTIONAL AFFILIATION(S) |
Introduction to
Management
[DOCUMENT SUBTITLE]

P a g e | 1
Introduction
Leadership is often defined as a quality that sets great people apart from good ones
which validates the idea behind simple illustration of leadership role in management. Leading
and managing are often taken as complimentary to each other, though they are conceptually
used to describe different levels of authority that are related to performance in organisations
(Azad, et al., 2017). But there are other management misconceptions also concerning team
leadership that are still believed by many people. Out of all, the most commonly believed is
‘leaders just delegate task to the others. This report will discuss this commonly believed
misconception by integrating research conducted with the help of credible sources.
Critical discussion and analysis
According to Morgeson, DeRue & Karam (2010), leadership role is “to do, or get
done, whatever is not being adequately handled for group needs” (p. 8). Structing teamwork
has indeed become a fact behind most of the organisation’s successes. Perhaps, a recent
survey made by high-level managers revealed why teams have proliferated and around 91%
of them agreed on the statement, teams play a significant role in organisational success.
Therefore, this conception gave rise to another concept behind what role leadership plays in
team setting. While some believed that leaders can help teams in various ways through
coaching-related activities by promoting adaptation and team learning, other believed that
leaders just sit in their fancy offices and delegates tasks and let others do all the necessary
work (Morgeson, DeRue & Karam, 2010).
A study conducted by Ali, Jangga, Ismail, Kamal & Ali, (2015) finds that previous
study showed how leaders practiced and what leadership is all about. The study revealed that
concept behind leadership has been mistaken by many people where few thinks that

P a g e | 2
leadership is all about being most powerful. Others believed that leader is the one who directs
in a manner to influence team members for conducting a work in desired manner.
Nevertheless, Hao & Yazdanifard (2015) claimed that leadership is a process in which
leaders utilise their knowledge and skills to lead and manage group of employees in desired
direction and are relevant to organisational objectives. According to the authors, leadership
and management must be regarded as two different approach in which management can be
taken as an traditional way for managing businesses, but leadership is one way through which
a leader guides team members or employees towards organisational goals, communicate with
them and keeps motivating their subordinates to make sure all the employees are positioned
in appropriate manner to use their commitment and talent in fulling their job roles.
Walter (2013) finds that many people follow a myth regarding leadership role stating,
“Leaders work smarter, not harder”. The author pinpoints on the false notion followed by
people regarding how leaders avoid working through smarter ways and apply their
knowledge in moving forward by either trying making past other or neglecting risk-oriented
work completely. However, Alrawi, Awad, Alrawi & Alrawi (2014) claims that “Leadership
values help performance in the long term” (p. 20) and therefore, leadership plays a significant
role in bringing organisational trust and recognition especially while embracing change
within its management. In this sense, it can be said that a leader remains under great pressure
related to targets and can even find themselves in a potion where they need to work harder
than other team members to get good results in long-run. However, the authors also opine
that increased focus on corporate social responsibility have made many firms embrace ethical
culture in its management but then, all the ethics and code of principles are ultimately set by
firm’s leaders for which they build a framework through their individual value and beliefs.
According to Go & Je (2015), leader’s managership quality while working in teams is
taken mis-conceptually by scholars as few of them treat leadership and managership terms as

P a g e | 3
synonymous to each other. This concept cannot be totally agreed upon as there are leaders
who belongs to completely unorganised groups, on the other hand, there are mangers who
performs their role in a unified way and as per given organisational structure. According to
the author, where leadership is about building a team, giving direction and inspiring team
members so that effective teams are built with amalgamated behavioural pattern,
management entails efficient and proper use of resources and remains inspired by firm’s
leadership. Jabbar & Hussein (2017) also asserts that leader’s make decisions that can help
organisation’s in achieving vison and thus decision-making is most critical role of leadership.
As such, they show responsibility to ensure proper functioning of every department within
organisation and in teams.
Another similar misconception regarding leadership have been identified by By,
Hughes & Ford (2016) where the authors reveals that majority research made on change
leadership focussed change outcomes through organisational leadership and that it is the
personal possession of leader’s through which followers are bestowed with change creation
techniques rather than making followers their partners in bringing successful change
outcomes. Here, the role of leader can be assumed as the one who describes techniques and
ways to the followers that can entail change within organisation instead of participating
actively during change intervention. However, in practical world, to implement change
effectively, leader’s collect required resources and collaborate them together wherever and
whenever required. They make alliances and creates networks within and outside
organisations that can align team performance with organisational needs thereby revealing
their role much more than delegating task to other people (Ali, et al., 2015).

P a g e | 4
Conclusion
Several misconceptions can be recognised regarding leadership in literature out of
which most common one reveals that leaders just delegate task to the others by sitting back in
their fancy offices. The above report made critical analysis and discussion concerning the
observed misconception from various theoretical perspectives and finds that leaders’ role is
not limited to delegate tasks only rather their performance goes beyond leading and managing
organisations especially while working with teams and during change processes. It can also
be said that leadership is a fusion of many roles like inspiring, motivating, leading, directing,
creating and delegating among many others that pushes teamwork in positive direction, raises
them successfully and brings every organisational element together to accomplish strategic
vision.

P a g e | 5
References
Ali, N. M., Jangga, R., Ismail, M., Kamal, S. N. M. & Ali, M. N., 2015. Influence Of
Leadership Styles In Creating Quality Work Culture. Procedia Economics and Finance,
Volume 31, pp. 161-169.
Alrawi, K., Awad, A. M., Alrawi, A. & Alrawi, W., 2014. Leadership Performance
Optimization: Effects on Team Achievement in Organizational Sustained Success. Global
Journal of Management and Business Research: A Administration and Management, 14(7),
pp. 17-28.
Azad, N., Anderson, H. G., Brooks, A., Garza, O., O’Neil, C., Stutz, M. M. & Sobotka, J. L.,
2017. Leadership and Management Are One and the Same. American Journal of
Pharmaceutical Education, 81(6).
By, R. T., Hughes, M. & Ford, J., 2016. Change Leadership: Oxymoron and Myths. Journal
of Change Management, 16(1), pp. 8-17.
Go, I. & Je, O., 2015. Impact of Leadership Style on Organization Performance: A Critical
Literature Review. Arabian Journal of Business and Management Review, 5(142).
Hao, M. J. & Yazdanifard, R., 2015. How Effective Leadership can Facilitate Change in
Organizations through Improvement and Innovation. Global Journal of Management and
Business Research, 15(09), pp. 1-6.
Jabbar, A. A. & Hussein, A. M., 2017. The Role of Leadership in Strategic Management.
International Journal of Research - Granthaalayah, 5(5), pp. 99-106.
Morgeson, F. P., DeRue, D. S. & Karam, E. P., 2010. Leadership in Teams: A Functional
Approach to Understanding Leadership Structures and Processes. Journal of Management,
36(1), pp. 5-39.

P a g e | 6
Walter, E., 2013. 5 Myths Of Leadership. [Online]
Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ekaterinawalter/2013/10/08/5-myths-of-
leadership/#22167b19314e
[Accessed 08 06 2019].