It is common to see people use the term leader and manager interchangeably. This essay has three parts. The first part addresses the issue of a leader versus a manager, the second part deals with the characteristics of successful leaders, and finally essay ends with a conclusion.
Different scholars have defined leaders and leadership in their own way however they share several salient components in their definition. Leadership is not only being the first, biggest, or most powerful person in an organization (Benowitz, 2001, p.141). In this regard, Statt (1999, p.92) argued that a leader is someone who encourage others and be more concerned with maintaining harmony and cordiality within a group in order to achieve a desired result. He underscored that leaders attempt to combine all of the available energies to direct them to achieve a desired objective or task. A manager is anyone involved in the administration of an organization with the authority to use organizational resources, such as money, human or equipment, in order to realize the objectives of an organization. Thus, it can be said that a leader is someone who encourages and inspires individuals and teams to do their level best in order to achieve a desired goal while managers are engaged in administration routines. The bulk literatures in the leadership arena accentuated that managers job vary from organization to organization but they involve in activities like planning, organizing, leading and controlling the resources of an organization or a department (Benowitz, 2005; Susan, 2010). From this it is equally natural to say that a leader is different from a managers in a sense that a leader is involved in inspiring people and influence people to follow him or her in order to achieve a desired result while a manager is somebody who is responsible for directing and controlling the work and staff of an organization, or of a department within it. Bennis tried to look leaders from
References: * Statt, David, A. 1999, Concise Dictionary of Business Management, Routledge, London. * Mcpheat, Sean, 2010, Emotional Intelligence, Ventus publishing, UK. * Benowitz, Ellen, A, 2001, Principles of Management, Hungry Minds, Inc., New York * Susan, Q, 2010, Management Basics, Ventus publishing, UK * Morden, T, (2007), Principles of Strategic Management, Ashgate Publishing Limited, England.