Leadership Vs Mangament
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Introduction
With corporate scandals, accounting fraud, and a general sense of entitlement in the workplace, there has never been a time that the roles of leaders and managers need to be clearly defined than today. While effective management can happen without new ideas and vision, leadership can never be present without new ideas and vision. Leadership and management will be briefly examined as well as recommendations for a healthy organizational structure.
Leadership
“The world is full of managers and desperately short of leaders – real leaders” (Murphy, E. & Murphy, M., 2003). The lack of true leadership will ultimately be the cause of failure in any endeavor. A company may have a marketable product, but without leadership, that product cannot be marketed or distributed to its potential. While there are many definitions of leadership, they all come back to the core of moving other people to action.
There are many theories on leadership styles. One of these theories is supervisory leadership, which is “a behavior that provides guidance, support, and corrective feedback for the day to day activities” of a group, or strategic leadership, which “gives purpose and meaning to organizations (Bateman-Snell, 2003). A leader basically provides the vision of an organization, but not just any vision will do.
A leader recognizes and identifies the strengths and weaknesses of the organization and creates a vision that is viable and believable by the organization. The leader must be able to articulate and explain his vision to the organization and have the pulling power to make the organization believe it can be accomplished. While the organization may not have the people necessary to accomplish the vision, an effective leader will begin to attract the type of people necessary to fulfill his vision. This intangible ability of leaders has changed the course of the world.
Abraham Lincoln is a great example of this ability to attract the right type of people. The Civil War had been raging for many years. The North had several opportunities to end the war and conquer the Southern army. Several of the generals failed to act on direct orders from Lincoln. Lincoln kept the vision of a united country and refused to become discouraged by the incompetence of his generals. Finally, Lincoln promoted Ulysses S. Grant to be the general of the Norths armies. This is what Lincoln had been looking for. General Grant believed in the vision that Lincoln had. With that vision, Grant organized the Norths armies and succeeded in defeating the South. Without the vision of Lincoln, who knows what the future of the United States would have been.
Management
While leadership is the heart and soul of great organizations, management is the arms, legs and hands of the organization. Leadership is vital, but management keeps the organization running smoothly and in a well planned direction. Leadership and management go hand-in-hand. A successful leader understands the role of management and uses or develops a management style to fit the needs of the organization. A management position does not necessarily mean leadership. A leader does not have to be a manager. These positions can vary by person and their own individual leadership and management skills.
Management and leadership must work together in order to accomplish the goals of the organization. One great example of this is Primerica Financial Services (PFS). In the structure of PFS there are co-CEOs. In Corporate America, this is very unusual. Generally, there is only one CEO and various managers below them. However, PFS has been very successful in their goals by using this approach. One CEO has a very gregarious personality and is responsible for working with the public and various people responsibilities for the company. The other CEO is reserved in his enthusiasm and very analytical. He takes care of the legal issues of the company. This powerful combination has produced dramatic results of growth and production for this company.
Personal Experience
In my previous job, there were several instances where department managers did not have a say in the responsibilities of the individuals of the department. Consequently, the manager had to go to an executive, who was not familiar with the department mechanics, organization and management style to make the final decision. This resulted in employees