Definition of leadership(4)

Leadership links closely with the idea of management, some would regard the two as synonymous. If you accept this premise, you can view leadership as being either:

✧centralized or decentralized;

✧broad or focused;

✧decision-oriented or morale-centred;

✧intrinsic or derived from some authority.

But a more accurate claim is that there is a reciprocal relationship between leadership and management, that is, an effective manager must have leadership skills, and an effective leader must have management skills. Although even this claim is too strong according to many. The difference between leadership and management was clearly delineated by Abraham Zaleznik (1977). Leaders he said, are inspiring visionaries who are concerned about substance, while managers are planners who are concerned with process. The dichotomy between managers and leaders was further explicated by Warren Bennis (1989). He draws twelve distinctions between the two groups:

•Managers administer ; leaders innovate,

•Managers ask how and when, leaders ask what and why,

•Managers focus on systems ; leaders focus on people,

•Managers do things right ; leaders do the right things,

•Managers maintain ; leaders develop,

•Managers rely on control ; leaders inspire trust,

•Managers have a short-term perspective ; leaders have a longer-term perspective,

•Managers accept the status-quo ; leaders challenge the status-quo,

•Managers have an eye on the bottom line ; leaders have an eye on the horizon,

•Managers imitate ; leaders originate,

•Managers are the classic good soldier ; leaders are their own person,

•Managers are a copy ; leaders are original.

Paul Birch (1999) also sees a distinction between leadership and management. He says, that as a broad generalization managers are concerned with tasks and leaders are concerned with people. This is not to say that leaders do not focus on the task. Indeed, one thing that characterizes a great leader is that they achieve. The difference is that the leader realizes that the achievement of the task is through the goodwill and support of others, while the manager may not.

This goodwill and support is generated by seeing people as people, not as another resource to be deployed in support of the task. The role of a manager is often to organize resources to get something done. People are one of these resources and many of the worst managers treat people as just another interchangeable item. The role of a leader is to cause others to follow a path you have laid or a vision you have created in order to achieve a task. Often the task is seen as subordinate to the vision. For instance, an organization might have the overall task of generating profit, but a good leader will see profit as a by-product that flows from whatever aspect of their vision differentiates their company from the competition.