Management VS Leadership



In this article, The Difference Between Managing and Leading, the author Stever Robbins raises a question of the difference between leadership and management and he questions himself about his role as a leader in the business that he owns. Robbins differentiates leadership and management by giving them simple definitions. He defined leadership as the heart of a business; a leader's main job is to inspire groups to achieve a common good by motivating, consoling, and work with them. In other word, a leader sets directions for employees to follow. On the other hand, managers are defined as the brain of a business. Managers deal with business not with people; they create systems, rules, and operating procedures. However, Robbins says that business executives are not completely leaders nor managers, CEO's and owners mostly have a mixture of both leadership and management skills. Both skills are important because they work in harmony. Anyhow, the book differentiated leadership and management in different way. The book says that managers "have legitimate power that allows them to reward and punish". Managers' ability to influence is based on formal authority in the position they have in an organization. On the other hand, the books defines leaders as the "people that are able to influence others and who can possess managerial authority". Leaders can affect others' performance beyond the actions commanded by formal authority p (354).

Many people believed that management is essential, but leading is even more important for tangible results in a business. Setting goals in a business (managing) tend to achieve less if it lacked direction setting (leading); every company has goals, but they don't seem to achieve as much without directions which is mission and operating principles (directions are broader than goals). Talking about the role of leaders in a business, the book says that people don’t have to be leaders to direct people, manager can definitely do that. The book also said that leaders’ job is part of that of managers' p (354).

After Robbins has differentiated between leadership and management, he starts describing the leader's job in today's businesses. All executives must have the characteristics of leaders; they must be aware of their business's directions. Directions must not be neglected especially in the heat of new market development. A leaders' job firstly is to bring people back to the company's directions consistently and challenge them to share and evaluate ideas and decisions. secondly, a leader must know that employees lose sight of the big goal of an organization, so in that case as a leader you should bring people back to the big picture. Finally, a leader must track employees’ steps and check if they stray from the company's objectives and make sure to bring them back to the right track. However, the book gave general descriptions of leaders concerning their behaviors. Firstly, leaders have high desire to achieve and to lead others. Secondly, they build trusting relationship between themselves and followers by being truthful. Thirdly, leaders have self-confidence and they lack self-doubt. Fourthly, job leaders are intelligent and have high level of knowledge about companies, industries, and technical matters p (355).