Introduction:
Leadership and management are two bipolar systems of worker administration in current business environment as defined by Kumle and Kelly (2000, 8). It is a topic most debated upon due to the similar characteristic of the roles they play in an organization which often intertwine. Leaders and managers are however disparate in their nature of act. As applied in a team-based organizational structure, the argument is that managers and leaders differs in the perceived entailment of authority they posses as viewed by their employees. However, they compliment one another and can be cultivated in order to be effectual. In this essay we will discuss how the traits of managers and leaders contrast one another by comparison. We will then analyze and evaluate how these differences can offset the other leading to the conclusion that both positions are highly congruent in order to achieve an effective situational leadership approach in an organization, eliminating the “false dichotomy” between the two (Adair 2005, 31). It is vitally important for leaders to posses not only leadership quality but also substantiated managerial skills, and vice versa, especially in today’s cutthroat business environment.
Leaders and managers are often confused due to the stark similarity of authoritative position they entails but are different in their defining factors. They are the same because of their essential role of being the person in the lead of the employees and being their source of command. However they are different in the effect they play in an organization as well as the perspective they emanates to the employees as well as the world. Leadership is the aptitude to guide and direct the embodying team towards an end goal while management is the astute means of completing the targets (Kumle and Kelly 2000, 9). As the famous saying by Warren Bennis (1989), “managers do things right