Distinction and Characteristics of Leadership and Management

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Table of Contents

Distinction between leadership and management
Characteristics of an effective leader
Characteristics of an effective Manager
Precedence in policies and procedures
Relevance of organization theories for today’s managers
Sensitivity analysis
References

Distinction between leadership and management

Any organization or company needs both a leader and a manager. The managers dominate most of the governance styles. The main differences lie between various supreme approaches to services. Managers have a value for results while leaders value relationships among members.

There is high regards over positions in management, while this is not evident in leadership styles. The leaders take reputable high risks compared to the managers, are personal, have caring attitude and, avoid copying others’ rules or governance styles (Pride et al, 2009, p. 23).

On the other hand, the manages will often conform to existing rules and want to ensure protection of their status quo, thus may remain rigid measures over change, this makes the leaders more innovative and ready to engage change for the better (Pride et al, 2009, p. 23). The leaders’ style of guidance is non-functional thus inspiring and motivational, compared to the management style of functionally analyzing, evaluating and solving problems from a personal perspective.

The leadership hierarchy restrains the flow of unnecessary information, poor policies of the firm, agendas that conflict governance as well as pressures for the need to conform. They are therefore entitled the tasks of providing overall directions (Crystal, 2010, p. 1). According to Pride et al (2009, p. 23), the issues of leadership have revolutionized due to diversification of performance groups, and this is why today’s leadership styles lacks many of the historical references.

The leadership styles made over decades concerning the ability to hold top management positions have become obsolete. Today the top management positions and their functions are still in common usage, but current trends indicate some distinct discoveries concerning distinction between managers and leaders.

The process of exercising leadership skills, styles and qualities has a different meaning over providing a vision and influencing those led. The managerial tasks have brought about realization of coexistence and sharing of thoughts among people who are working towards common goals.

From the analytical or professional point of view, it is possible to define the leadership style of governance in two ways. The first definition falls under the ability to have considerations of various aspects in the organization such as age, gender, performance, and experience and energy differences, characterized by an emphasis over good relations.

In this situation, the leader is a good listener who is approachable and friendly. This style entails openness thus enlisting the mental trust among those involved. Secondly is the ability to engage a leadership behaviour that directs an organization and assists in defining goals, structure and style of execution (Volmann et al, 2005, p.3).

Characteristics of an effective leader

A leader is able to perform various functions of the organizational such us selecting people to make up the organizational structure, units or segments that control the flow of information in and out of the organization. The leader must also have the ability to ensure group participation in a knowledgeable manner.

The second function involves the interpersonal characteristics, which create good working morale within the organization. The leader ought to indicate a good degree of concern about humanness and pay attention to the follower’s concerns over leadership or other organization’s aspects.

Lastly is the decisional function, that one mainly engages to give the impression of searching for the decisions regarding achievements of goals. According to Pride et al (2009, p. 29), this is a traditional perspective that is all along associable to leadership and remains utilized to date.

These functional points of view define leadership and the most crucial or hard part of leadership. Leadership entails the ability to create a compelling vision and style reshaped by future perspectives. According to Pride et al (2009, p. 23), the leader does the guidance tasks through the visions or ultimate powers accorded for a processes to be successful. Those involved must also act as a team.

The most critical task of a leader is the ability to focus attention. This person is involved mainly with the aspects of deciding. Every time or day involves a fresh crisis requiring a solution. How the attention is subdivided determines the continuity of the organization.

For instance, the leader cannot focus on the current tasks and ignore the future aspects or consequences that can affect the organization. Those problems, concepts, ideas or actions that receive the attention determine the sustainability of the organization. In line with Dodds (2008, p.1), a good definition of leadership is the ability to determine the aspects of an organization, that receives focus or attention at any given time. Otherwise, one considers the number of concerns receiving the concentration over a specific period.

Characteristics of an effective Manager

The manager identifies with skills of handling supervisory positions. The time management skills assist in handling deadlines for the tasks and assignments. Good time management skills require a person who is able to set goals and assign specific tasks to employees while setting individual goals. Time management has a close link to resources management for instance finances, thus the need for wise budgeting.

The manager also must have excellent communication skills since communication is a fundamental aspect of engaging projects especially when the managers have to engage or relate to employees, clients or other businesses. A good manager is confident and has a personality that enhances excellent communication ability. The communication ability and experience has to cater for groups as well as individuals.

Conflicts are common especially in a diverse setting. The manager listen, identify, agree and discusses solutions with employees, providing follow up to relieve awkward tensions. Personal traits or personalities are also main aspects that govern management.

The business expectations makes management hard to implement because not every person has the ability to engage all the required traits such as creativity, adaptability, charismatic attribute, confidentiality, understanding, ability to tolerate, great listening and willingness to learn. Experience is an important aspect of managers because they must have good knowledge of their title and the performance appraisals.

Explain the meaning and importance of work groups and teams and evaluate the importance of groups and teams for effective organizational performance.

Organization performance depends on the ability to create and administer a performance management culture among employees. The main and frequently utilized measure of encouraging performance culture entails methodologies that give employees’ confidence to question and seek guidance through departmental groups, human resource representatives or team leaders.

Employees should participate in decision-making and policy implementation procedures especially on matters concerning performance requirements. Employees’ engagement also helps in avoiding conflicts during performance.

The best way to engage the performance culture therefore involves group or team work. The leadership styles and discipline are the key elements that play a vital role in creation, definition and management of a performing culture.

Company’s group or teamwork culture is the systematic procedures that regard performance of duties and procedures, by engaging others especially in coming up with the ideas to achieve company goals. Performance involves combination of the employees’ thoughts, actions and feelings. Lack of proper management on these aspects of performance culture among employees’ means they become perplexed or stymie by some bureaucratic processes, and eventually conflict.

Good group work sets its basis on employees’ interaction, to promote decision-making and direct accountability over performance. With discipline, there are clear expectations and commitments produced in a group work setting.

There has to be management proactive measures to block obstructions of performance such as rewards, which ensures that employees remain truly engaged to their duties. Today, emphasis on self-engagement and discipline has overthrown ancient style of “command and control” to enhance recognition of clear boundaries over the lines of duty, flexibility over performance and therefore foster required partnership.

According to Dodds (2008, p. 2), a good teamwork focuses in capturing the global clientele. Through teamwork, the management is able to capitalizes on the employees strengths while minimize on the weaknesses.

The differences between employees entail differences on management skills; therefore, such a setting strengthens understanding and enhances stronger bonds among employees. Teamwork creates opportunities for advancement and an entrepreneur should know that diversity is something more than a moral obligation. It is a business opportunity.

Evidently, companies that practice the ethics of teamwork are incomparable to businesses that engage individualism (Crystal, 2010, p. 1). Implementing workgroups in a company’s work environment could have benefits that include improved job satisfaction, a higher degree of company commitment and increase of turnover.

Team spirit is a good ethical practice and thus a benefit in practicing business ethics in the workplace. Workgroups can lead to employee satisfaction, flexible work schedules and more responsibilities. Improved job satisfaction is one benefit that boosts employees’ morale to complete tasks correctly and in a timely manner.

“The study of different approaches to organisation and management and the development of organisation theory have no practical relevance for today’s managers. It is really no more than a luxury for students and the time could be spent better on other important topics.”

Critically reflect upon this statement and present a counter argument.

A good management entails having influence over others. How does one gain the influence? The designated or emergent leader must acquire the ability or power to known the interpersonal influence by understanding various approaches or theories of managing or organizing.

Precedence in policies and procedures

Considering that most business regulations are standard that are applicable in most case scenarios, there is therefore need to prioritize on the imperative necessities to learn the policies or procedures to implement organization or management theories. One importance of the theories regards performance.

Proper organization theories and procedures should support the performance-based analysis.

Relevance of organization theories for today’s managers

Employees’ management requires capacity planning and control. The managers have to know the techniques required to address the issue of scheduling business applications and planning the allocation of resources. Controlling performance through routing or queuing and having various problem-solving techniques in place for various departments is equally important (Vollmann et al, 2005, p. 3).

The organization theories include optimization techniques. The function of management or organizing is to maximize on the elements that meet the least expenditure objectives within a constrained operating environment. Business management theories therefore assist in braking down a big problem to ease complexity and thus speeding up computation.

t allows efficiency in and ability to handle the uncertainties adequately. Secondly, use of organizational theories in management is a dynamic approach that allows mastery of consecutive decisions-making procedures in a multi-stage pattern.

It is easy for one to come up with a personalized way of dealing with problems, but the most effective procedures are those based on proven facts such as the management theories. For instance, theories indicate that it is possible to recursively relate a problem to solutions, to come up with most effective results or conclusions.

A complex problem can decompose to various sub-problems for individual employees to handle. The solution to one problem creates a sequentially dependent framework, such that the solution of a sub-problem emerges from the preceding solution. A common management theory involves engagement of group or teamwork because of a consideration of the whole problem as a common quandary broken into various parts with preceding independent resolutions.

Sensitivity analysis

The management theories engagement also involves sensitivity analysis as an approach to solving problem. There is need for a manager to involve practical and proven procedures of solving problems. The theories assist managers in hypothetical, logical or substantial analysis of the most effective procedures to take.

Theories provide business with major challenges regarding performance and assists in examining the most important factors for the revolution and performance. Theories also provide a procedure of examining impacts of changes and their effects as outputs (Dodds, 2008, p. 1). One has to evaluate reasonable limits for change or the individual impact on other independent measures of business quality. This approach determines business viability or validity.

References

Crystal, D. (2010). Managing Business Ethics. Web.

Dodds, B. (2008). Pandemic Planning and Business Continuity. Web.

Pride, W. M., Hughes, J. M. & Kappor, J. R. (2009). Business. Kentucky, KY: Cengage Learning Publishers.

Vollmann, T. E., Berry, W. L., Whybark, C. D. (2005). Manufacturing Planning and control systems for supply chain management. New York, NY: The McGraw-Hill Publisher/Irwin series.

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