Running one’s own business or being an important part of it is connected with few necessary characteristics, that are simply interrelated with two meaningful business terms – management and leadership. Even though they seem to be alike, there are few differences.
Management is a set of activities directed at an organization’s resources with the aim of achieving organizational goals in an effective and efficient way. It is also defined as a coordination of the activities of a business in order to achieve defined objectives. Like any other activity, management has its own roles. These roles, according to Mintzberg’s theory, are divided into 3 categories.
First one is interpersonal category, which involves providing information and idea and includes roles such figurehead – these are mainly social and ceremonial responsibilities but also carrying about reputation. There is as well leader’s role, it means obligation to lead the organization and encourage employees. Liaison role is then about communicating with internal and external contacts.
The roles in the second category, the informational one, involve processing information. First one is the monitor – this is scanning reports and controlling the team. There is also disseminator, it is about providing information to the team and spokesperson role as representing and speaking for institution. Here it is important to spread organization’s goals.
Last category is named decisional and is connected with using information. First decisional role is entrepreneur and for the manager that means creating and controlling changes but also solving problems and trying to implement new ideas as much as it is possible. Another important aspect of decisional category is disturbance handler, means that when the institution needs to face a number of difficulties, manager is responsible enough and must take charge. In organization, budget revision and money allocation is the priority and belongs to resource allocator role. And the last but not least part is negotiator, that is important role in agreement with labor union.
All of mentioned roles are equally essential in manager’s work. According to the definition, manager is someone who’s primary responsibility is to carry out the management process. As the roles says, he makes decisions, leads and controls. However, it is obvious that not everyone has an aptitude and is able to be a manager, at least the good and up-and-coming one. It is well-known that there are some skills, named managerial, that every head of the organization should exhibit. First of all technical skill, it means understanding specific kind of work done in the organization. Similar one is the conceptual skill that means ability to grasp, for example kind of problem. Interpersonal skill is the manager’s ability to communicate and understand but also motivate people and it is connected with communication skill that is all about negotiations and persuasions. As one of the most important people in institution, manager faces a lot of dilemmas and here due to problems that occur sometimes, he must show decision making skill, recognize problem and select an appropriate action and solutions. In the even of difficulties, diagnostic skill is something that helps to analyze the situation. The last one, but also meaningful, is time-management which is the ability to prioritize work and do it efficiently.
There are few sources of these abilities. Prospective manager can gain them in education process but they may also appear with the experience.
Due to the fact that there are few kinds of managers, i. e. top, middle and first-line, each of them may need some of the skills more than another.
Although managing is the first word that comes to mind when it’s about ruling the company, there is also another term, named leadership. Professor Warren Bennis said that leaders are people who do the right thing, when managers are the ones who do things right (what is by the way also a difference between effectiveness and efficiency). The definition of leadership created by Eisenhower says, that it is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done, because he wants to do it. Leader is a person who creates vision and this vision gives priorities, goals and is set to see if at the end the company achieved what it wanted to. The vision is created and then leader motivates workers to realize it. He has to make sure that they are enthusiastic about work and inspired enough during the whole process. For the boss it is a real challenge to connect dreamed-of goals with people’s needs and aspirations. Important task for leader is to make worker believe in his skills and to show them that the ruler is a true expert in what he does. This man has as well to build a team, coach it and make sure that all of the members have necessary abilities to achieve specific goals. Good leader is aware of his team morale.
Even though management and leadership are different things, they are simply linked and obviously need to go hand in hand. Differences are not really easy to tell, but Warren Bennis distinguished few facts that show inequality in these two terms. He said that the manager administers, maintains and imitates. He focuses on system and control and sticks to the status quo. By contrast, leader is someone who innovates and is an original, he develops, challenges the team and focuses on workers and trust them.
Management and leadership are often part of the same role, but in fact, management is all about administrating, planning and budgeting. In producing it is focused on quality, budget and it is really difficult task.
On the other hand leadership is completely different. It is thinking about the future, finding opportunities and properly using them. The main difference is that the manager has the people to work for him, while leader has people to follow him, but the truth is that they are both necessary and it is possible for manager to become a leader, so a successive business owner need to be both. However, while manager is often in leadership role, he may not necessarily go about his work as a leader. This together is a great combination of controlling and motivating. It needs to be remembered that it is influence and inspiration that separate leader from manager, not control and power. The whole process of planning, organizing, leading and controlling the effort of workers is going towards meeting organization’s objects. It must be at the same time connected with inspiring and directing.
People often use words management and leadership alternately and they do not pay attention to important differences. It may take some time to distinguish what it means to manage and what is the leading. Of course, as long as the ruler keeps aware of what his specific kind of task is, it isn’t that hard to jump from the management to the leadership, or vice-versa. However, as the boss work requires a lot of various skills, preferable is combination of both, managing and leading.
Bibliography:
- Griffin W. Ricky “Fundamentals of Management”
- Mintzberg Henry “Mintzberg on Management: Inside Our Strange World of Organizations”
- Bennis Waren “Leaders: The Strategies for Taking Charge”
