Before I begin to discuss about leaders and managers, management and leadership need to be defined. According to Jones & George, management is defined as “the planning, organizing, leading and controlling of human and other resources to achieve organizational goals efficiently and effectively. (cited in Jones & George, 2007, p. 5). Thus a manager plans, organizes, leads and controls the assets of an organization.
As stated by the previous definition, leadership is a part of management. However, the purpose of this paper is to explain the following:
1. Why not all managers are leaders
2. Define what leaders and managers do
3. How managers and leaders can be the same individual
4. Why a manager can be a leader in an organization
As stated above, the words management and manager were very easily defined. However, the term Leader is a bit more complex as “researchers usually define leadership according to their individual perspectives and the aspects of the phenomenon of most interest to them.” (cited in Yukl, G. 2006, p. 2). “The term Leadership, is a word taken from the common vocabulary and incorporated into the technical vocabulary of a scientific discipline without being precisely redefined and as a consequence it carries extraneous connotations that create ambiguity of meaning” (cited in Janda, 1960). For this paper, leadership will be defined as “the process by which an individual exerts influence over other people and inspires, motivates and directs their activities to help achieve group or organizational goals. (cited in Jones & George, 2007, p. 357). With this said, a leader is the “individual that is able to exert influence over other people to help achieve group or organizational goals. (cited in Jones & George, 2007, p. 357)
It is safe to say that not all managers are leaders. The reason is that in order for a leader to exist, there must be subordinates that follow. Therefore, a leader without subordinates is
References: Jones, Gareth R. and George, Jennifer M. (2007). Essentials of Contemporary Management. Boston, Massachusetts. The McGraw-Hill Companies. Yukl, G. (2006). Leadership in Organizations. Upper Saddle River, N.J. Pearson Prentice Hall