The Difference Between Leadership and Management

The Difference between Leadership and Management
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Institutional Affiliation

Abstract
There is an ongoing debate concerning the superiority of managers and leaders in organizations nowadays. While some firms prefer management, others choose leadership instead. It is the reason as to why managers and leaders seem as an all-in-one assets. However, they are different based on their traits and workability. Managers have the ability to organize the firm by using available resources and investing in employees to meet the expectations of productivity. Contrarily, leaders are visionary individuals who capitalize on every moment to ensure maximum productiveness in organizations through inventions and innovations. With such differences, it is not advisable to intermix management and leadership as standard terms in the corporate world. However, for the success of any enterprise in the current competitive and unpredictable market, there is a need to have managerial leaders (managers who are leaders). By combining the two, one complements the other to ensure an organized administrative outlook that overcomes weaknesses by exploiting strengths of the organization. It leads to adoption and implementation of the vision, followed by its management to necessitate the productivity of existing and new operations.
Keywords: management, leadership, traits, workability, managerial leaders

The Difference between Leadership and Management
Does active management lead to effective leadership? It is the question that troubles many modern-day organizations as they strive to maintain their focus when pursuing their set objectives.

Even so, Stacey (2012) finds that every successful enterprise needs to achieve effectiveness in leadership and management. It means that a good manager must be a worthy leader. The inadequacy of either leadership or management is an early indication of business failure. The necessity to have managers who are leaders is the problem that firms are facing nowadays according to the research conducted by Jeon et al. (2015). As a means of finding a solution based on this paper’s context, it is critical to understand the differences between management and leadership. This understanding is poised to pave a way of finding managerial leaders (managers who are leaders) as important players when inclining a business in a success-oriented direction.
Background Information
Management and leadership are concepts that share a common history by conferring to Herman (2011). In the past, management and leadership characterized the TV sitcoms’ themes. The celebration of the Office’s ‘management speak’ master, David Brent, centered on the character of an evil boss. However, recent outrages in the corporate world, such as those of the BBC, the banking sector, and NHS, have given rise to the debate concerning management and leadership. With regards to Jeon et al. (2015), politicians, employers and other related parties are now searching for the better way of organizing public and private institutions alike. What emerges from the given scenario is the essentiality of differentiating management and leadership. It concurs with propositions of scholars such as John Kotter. They fear that many employers are interchanging the use of leadership and management. These terms are not synonymous though they play a fundamental role in effecting the continuity and productivity of every institution.
In distinguishing the purposed synonymy, Ratcliffe (2013) simplifies the comprehensibility of management and leadership with clear definitions. It is where a manager is a person who heads a set of procedures to necessitate the proper functioning of an organization. Thus, any management makes an institution operate by ensuring it hits the targets. It leads to processes like planning, staffing, assessing performance, delegating tasks, and solving issues when concerns arise on various occasions (Ratcliffe, 2013; Răducan & Răducan, 2014). All these are absent when it comes to leadership. It is dissimilar since leaders are all about aligning followers to the organizational vision. Such a happening allows people to buy-in a shared idea through appropriate communication, coupled with inspiration or motivation. Based on this description, it is deducible that leadership and management are different based on two key aspects, namely, traits, and workability.
Concrete Differences
Traits
The principal difference between managers and leaders bases on traits. Those of a manager include, first, vision execution that Lunenburg (2011) describes as the ability to build a procedure-based plan. It predisposes a roadmap for the staff to follow. Second, a manager is capable of directing according to Stacey (2012). It is taking the responsibility of day-to-day activities, reviewing needed resources, and forestalling arising needs to make any required change. Third, management of processes is another manager’s ability, especially when authority is a requirement in establishing work operations, rules, and standards. Last, but not least, the people-focused attribute is a vital characteristic of a manager as posited by Răducan and Răducan (2014). Managers must account for employees, listen to them, and engage their abilities in decision-making. It goes hand-in-hand with addressing the concerns of workers as a means of encouraging the successfulness of change. When it comes to leadership, it is paramount to identify essential traits. These are a vision, inspiration, honesty and integrity, communication capabilities, and challenge abilities (Jeon et al., 2015). As the first and foremost aspect, leaders are visionary by knowing where the organization is, where it needs to be, and what to do to get there. It requires the involvement of all players, and the process demands those who lead to possess the integrity of speaking and acting in an honest mode. It is the only way employees can believe in their leaders, thereby leading to inspiration and motivation in workplaces (Herman, 2011). In inspiring and motivating the workforce, leaders must communicate effectively at all times. Effective communication allows every party to share a common vision. It also influences teamwork and acts as a reliable tool in problem-solving instances. That way, Morrison (2010) uses the complexity theory outline to portray leadership as a challenge-welcoming specialty. Leaders do not get comfortable with their status quo. They go beyond the managerial limits to implement their vision.
Workability
Besides traits, workability is another technique of differentiating leaders from managers and vice versa. First of all, Lunenburg (2011), Stacey (2012) and Ratcliffe (2013) agree that leadership concentrates on inventions or innovations while management focuses on the organization idea in any firm. It reveals leaders as people who come with new concepts, followed by positioning institutions in a forward-thinking direction. They are always looking past the limits to find new strategies for developing their organization. That calls for vast knowledge in advancement frameworks, current trends, sets of skills, and clarity regarding organizational purpose. Contrarily, managers are individuals who are inclined to maintain the establishments existing in firms. Morrison (2010) confirms that every manager’s apprehension is to oversee the bottom-line not to go beyond operational limits of a company. In so doing, there is controlling of workers and workflow in an organization, thereby avoiding possibilities of chaos. All these signify regular work programs that are part of an institution’s manager.
Workability’s second outlook is the controlling and inspiring techniques of management and leadership respectively. Lunenburg (2011) agrees by describing leaders as people who push employees to perform maximally by setting a considerable tempo and pace of the workflow. It forms a basis for inspiration, thereby leading to new heights of achievement in an organization (Răducan & Răducan, 2014). However, the job description of every manager demands the need to institute control over workers. It helps the management to develop the entire workforce into a productive asset of the company. Productivity, in this case, represents the ability of a manager to bring what is best for every employee. With this, one can deduce that a manager needs to understand subordinates well. It is important in capitalizing on every worker’s strengths.
The last workability consideration when differentiating management and leadership entails two particular questions. A leader’s question bases on the ‘what’ and ‘why’ approach while that one of a manager is all about ‘how’ and ‘when’ by rendering the predispositions of Ratcliffe (2013). It implies that, in leadership, there is a sense of justice where leaders have to contest and question the existing authority on many circumstances. What eventuates is the modification of decisions to fit the expectations regardless of the fact that followers may agree or disagree with it. Regarding Jeon et al. (2015), to prevent resistance during times of disagreements, leaders require lots of soundness in making judgments. More so, courage is vital in enabling leaders to stand up for what is right in an organization even if it goes against the conventional management processes. Contrariwise, managers’ job is not to go against the set procedures. They are not to assess occurrences of failures. What they need to ask their functionalities is ‘how’ and ‘when’ questions. When answering such concerns, they end up focusing on the correct execution of the strategy put in place. That is why managers accept their status quo in an institution the way it is without having any attempts to change it. It is, therefore, upon every organization to decide whether they want managers or leaders.
Conclusion
There is no denial people interchange the use of management and leadership. It more so in current times where the running of an institution requires managers who are leaders. With such confusion, it is hard to tell if a person qualifies for management or leadership. The discussed content proves that managers are different from leaders based on traits and workability. It means that management focuses on aligning operations in a customary manner to meet expectations while leadership goes beyond organizational standards to innovate and invent. Despite this apparent difference, every firm requires managers who are leaders to guarantee continuity, productivity, sustainability.

References
Herman, R. D. (2011). The Jossey-Bass handbook of nonprofit leadership and management. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Jeon, Y. H., Simpson, J. M., Li, Z., Cunich, M. M., Thomas, T. H., Chenoweth, L., & Kendig, H. L. (2015). Cluster randomized controlled trial of an aged care specific leadership and management program to improve work environment, staff turnover, and care quality. Journal of the American Medical Directors Association, 16(7), e1-e10.
Lunenburg, F. C. (2011). Leadership versus management: a key distinction–at least in theory. International Journal of Management, Business, and Administration, 14(1), 1-4.
Morrison, K. (2010). Complexity theory, school leadership, and management: questions for theory and practice. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 38(3), 374-393.
Răducan, R., & Răducan, R. (2014). Leadership and management. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 149, 808-812.
Ratcliffe, R. (2013, July 29). What’s the difference between leadership and management? Retrieved November 21, 2016, from https://www.theguardian.com/careers/difference-between-leadership-management
Stacey, R. D. (2012). Tools and techniques of leadership and management: Meeting the challenge of complexity. New York, NY: Routledge.