Abstract
Leadership and management may offer similarities but are completely different as their motives and beliefs are different altogether. “For a firm to become more productive and to differentiate itself through innovation, the right people have to be in place in the leadership and the management structure” (Phillips, 2008). Managers are needed to control daily tasks through reinforcing the company’s vision and a leader in necessary within a business to create the vision and to influence and drive others towards reaching the ultimate goal.
Both managers and leaders are important positions within an organization and are needed for different reasons but are essential in the normal every day operations.
Leadership versus Management
As many can argue on whether leadership is superior to management, others can discuss how both positions are needed with any organization and both offer equally important aspects including innovation and productivity. Managers are seen as doing things right and use process orientation while leaders use vision to do the right things (Phillips, 2008). Vision and product outputs are both required in order for a company to succeed and achieve goals and stay innovative within the competitive business fields in our economy. Phillips (2008) states, “Building a culture of productivity and innovation requires some vision at the top- a leader to understand the market dynamics and drive people in his or her organization to change.” Once a leader creates the vision, managers can organize and set forth the necessary tasks that are vital to converge from employees to reach the goal.
Differences between Leadership and Management
There are some key differences between leadership and management, one fact between the two remain the same and that is, both leaders and managers play a role in shaping the future of an organization. Leaders and managers alike are goal oriented. They both desire to have results; however, the vehicle they drive to get to those desired results remain dissimilar. Leadership simply focuses on leading people. So, since Leadership necessitates followers, leaders must possess a magnetism and a transformational style that attracts others to go in the desired direction of the leader. According to "The World's Greatest Leaders (2014), One of the world’s most renowned leaders is Pope Francis. The 77-year-old Pontiff of the Catholic Church leads billions of Roman Catholics around the world and in a brief time he has began to restructure the Catholic Church with a new attitude and objectives. In a recent survey; because of the Pope and his leadership ability, more Catholics said that they would increase their giving to charities that support those in need (2014).
On the other hand, management focuses more on people, but in a different way. Management requires insubordinates, unlike Leadership, which have followers. Management deals more with control and the use of resources available to get a job done. Management typically has to carry out the goals of the company by solving problems, motivating staff, planning the day-to-day operations and keeping an appropriate amount of staff (Norman, 2015).
Example of a Leader and Manager
The Investigations Captain of my police department is a great example of a leader and the Sergeant in charge of my unit is an example of a manager. The Captain is in charge of the entire investigation bureau. He knows and lives by his values. He believes in the rules in which he abides by, regardless of which circumstances he faces. He allows everyone in the police department, not just his bureau, to understand the values they are committed to uphold, which in turn lays the foundation for the rules the officers are expected to adhere to. By both knowing and communicating his values openly, he has created an atmosphere of certainty and trust. The Captain is inspirational and motivational.
My Sergeant is in charge of the gang unit and he ultimately answers to the Captain. While my Sergeant is a good leader in his own right, he is currently in a position to manage his unit. He adheres to the Captains vision and guidelines and maintains and ensures the Captains visions are completed in a way in which he would be proud. While the Captain is ensuring he is doing the right thing, my Sergeant is ensuring those things are done right by all of us in the unit. My Sergeant has to focus on both the system and structure of our unit which allows the Captain to focus on all of the officers. My Sergeants main job is to plan, organize, and coordinate.
Past Leadership Event in the Public Sector
On October 7, 2015 in Culpeper, Virginia local law enforcement was encountered with a possible threat of a student with a gun at a local high school. Officials locked down the high school and nearby Culpeper Middle School and a school annex through the noon hour while police continued searching for the gun, which they believed was a .22-caliber handgun after finding shell casings of ammunition of that caliber in a vehicle parked at the school. Culpeper County Sheriff Scott Jenkins says active shooter training provided to all school employees and plans to coordinate with local police responding such an incident worked well. No one was hurt. (Gun Scare, 2015). This threat became very real for all those involved, including law enforcement, school adminastrators, staff and students. This incident for law enforcement included many variables that required the use of several supervisors and managers. There were several different supervisors from multiple jurisdictions to assist in the planning, organizing and response to this incident. Although each one of these supervisors played a role in the incident as leaders, ultimately the Sheriff of Culpeper was the leader who the other entities looked to for leadership and guidance. This incident is an example when leadership based off of courage, experience, and the ability to have others follow your lead is important. Each aspect of this very terrifying experience had a leader behind the scenes in some fashion. The management portion of this incident consisted of public information getting dissented, logistics and support planned and organized, and the ability to manage from afar. In this incident with law enforcement, experience is an important trait for leaders to posses.
Conclusion
Managers tend to control situations and have subordinates who they control in order to achieve the intended goal within the organization. While leaders offer motivation and help to influence others towards reaching goals within the workplace and have followers rather than subordinates. Our example of a real world leader and manager include the Police captain leading the police force through innovation and original ideas to perform daily tasks and operations. A police sergeant is more of a manager who administers tasks and maintains control of other police officers with its main focus on structure and keeping control of the system in order to accomplish a task within the workplace.
References
Phillips, J. (2008). Make us more Innovative: Critical Factors for Innovation Success. Retrieved from
The World's Greatest Leaders (2014). (2014).
Norman, L. (2015). What are the Four Basic Functions that make up the management process.
Gun scare at Culpepper school turned out to be pellet gun. (2015, October 7)
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