Importance of Management and Leadership for an Organization

“Both management and leadership are needed to make teams and organisations successful. Trying to decide which is more important is like trying to decide whether the right or left wing is more important to an airplane’s flight. I’ll take both please!” (Clemmer, 2005, as cited in McLean, 2005, p.16). The aim of this essay is to answer the age old question as to whether management or leadership is more important to an organisation. Organisations, ranging from professional to social, have been in existence for centuries and the sole purpose of any of these organisations is to grow and succeed. Thus, it is without a doubt that any organisation would accomplish much without a source of management or leadership. Even though it is evident that both management and leadership are both fundamental to a successful organisation, a distinction between the two should be made; although they are both similar in definition and function they do differ in importance in and effect on organisations. It is contended that the implementation of good management has a greater benefit, and therefore has more importance, to an organisation than leadership because: leading is considered as an element of the management function; to manage an organisation is to sustain it whereas to lead is to direct it but if there is no management, there is no entity, which leaves nothing for leaders to lead; leadership is focused on the management of people but an organisation is made up of more than just people; and also the value of leadership depends deeply on the structure and size of the organisation in question.
The term ‘good’ is often used to describe something of quality and skill; thus, good management simply means management that is of the highest quality and is effective in producing the greatest results for an organisation: “Excellent results stem from a combination of skilled management, strategic thought and a good dose of general common sense” (Honig, 1999, as cited in Samson & Daft, 2009,