Effective Management And Effective Leadership

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Difference between Effective Management and Effective Leadership

Judy Short
Principles of Management
April 13, 2014

Difference between Effective Management and Effective Leadership
Introduction:
What is the difference between management and leadership? It is a compelling question that is often asked and also answered in many different ways. Management and leadership are very different skills. The key difference between managers and leaders can be identified in the way they motivate the people who work or follow them. Managers have subordinates, utilize an authoritarian / transactional style, are work focused, and seek comfort. Leaders have followers, utilize a charismatic / transformational style, are people focused, and seek risk.
What is Management:
“Management is the process of working with people and resources to accomplish organizational goals. Good managers do those things both effectively and efficiently.” (Bateman & Snell, 2004). Management contains four basic functions; planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. By using these four functions, one can create an organization both successfully and proficiently. Planning is specifying the goals to be achieved and deciding in advance the appropriate actions needed to achieve those goals. Planning sets the stage for actions and for major achievements. Organizing is assembling and coordinating the human, financial, physical, informational, and other resources needed to achieve goals. Organizing attracts people to the organizations, specifying job responsibilities, grouping jobs into work units, marshaling and allocating resources, and creating conditions so that people and things work together to achieve maximum success. Leading is directing, motivating,...

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...In Too Many Bosses, Too Few Leaders, (Pashawaria, 2011) the author asks the question, “Of all the bosses you’ve had in your career, how many would you call truly great leaders? For the purpose of this question, a great leader is someone who inspired you to show up every morning and do your best possible work, someone who made you believe in yourself, someone who genuinely cared about your success, and someone whom you wanted to follow willingly.”
An argument could be made for one position over the other but based on my research and personal experience, I am of the opinion that it is the leader not the manager who is the most valuable asset of an organization. Managers, although effective in their own right, cannot buy your heart. In the end, when it becomes time to follow someone down a difficult, dark path into the unknown, I want to follow a leader.

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