Leadership/Management Analysis
Reflective Essay: Leadership/Management Analysis Felicia Hatchett Saint Mary 's University of Minnesota Schools of Graduate & Professional Programs OL 614 Leadership and Ethics Mary Ellen Lynch, Lynda Hinrichs, Diana Christine Teodorescu January 20, 2013
Reflective Essay: Leadership/Management Analysis I have enjoyed this week’s readings and feel like I have had my eyes opened to a broader way of thinking. Like Joseph Rost (1993) said in our reading this week I also have been guilty of “Confusing leadership and management and treating the words as if they were synonymous” (p. 129). He went on to say that the crime of confusing the two has a long and illustrious history in leadership studies (p. 129). This observation of his amazes me because until this week I was unaware of a distinction between the two, but now that the difference has been pointed out to me by our readings and discussions this week, now I cannot help but notice the differences. The main difference to me is that managers are given set policies and procedures to adhere to and make their subordinates adhere to. Leaders however use their judgment, experiences, and intuition to do what needs to be done for success, whether that means is a previously untried solution or the revamping and improvement of an outdated an un-useful technique. I do not mean to imply that leaders totally disregard policies and procedures, it is just that unlike managers, they are not boxed in by them. The study that we have done this week on the comparison of leadership and management has definitely changed my concepts of the two. Having had many management positions in the past in the areas of restaurant supervision, manufacturing, and assembly line production, I believed that those positions were leadership positions. Now after this week’s readings I recognize them for what they were, management positions. They were management positions because I was given
Reflective Essay: Leadership/Management Analysis I have enjoyed this week’s readings and feel like I have had my eyes opened to a broader way of thinking. Like Joseph Rost (1993) said in our reading this week I also have been guilty of “Confusing leadership and management and treating the words as if they were synonymous” (p. 129). He went on to say that the crime of confusing the two has a long and illustrious history in leadership studies (p. 129). This observation of his amazes me because until this week I was unaware of a distinction between the two, but now that the difference has been pointed out to me by our readings and discussions this week, now I cannot help but notice the differences. The main difference to me is that managers are given set policies and procedures to adhere to and make their subordinates adhere to. Leaders however use their judgment, experiences, and intuition to do what needs to be done for success, whether that means is a previously untried solution or the revamping and improvement of an outdated an un-useful technique. I do not mean to imply that leaders totally disregard policies and procedures, it is just that unlike managers, they are not boxed in by them. The study that we have done this week on the comparison of leadership and management has definitely changed my concepts of the two. Having had many management positions in the past in the areas of restaurant supervision, manufacturing, and assembly line production, I believed that those positions were leadership positions. Now after this week’s readings I recognize them for what they were, management positions. They were management positions because I was given
References: Rost, Joseph. (1993). Leadership for the Twenty-First Century. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers. Pages 129 – 152