President Abraham Lincoln, Steve Jobs, and Oprah, are all very different people, but what do they have in common? They are all leaders. It takes a unique talent to be a leader, and the position is not for everyone. It could be argued that leadership can be taught there are specific differences between a leader and a manager.
The four functions of management are planning, organizing, controlling, and leading. While it is true that “leading” is a function of management, this displays the fact that leading and managing go hand-in-hand, and yet have separate meanings. In order to lead the leader must have a plan and this plan must contain a vision. Leaders need to be organized and prepared to motivate their “followers”. Leaders are well spoken and are able to reach out to a number of individuals who strive for inspiration and reason to follow (Bateman & Snell, 2013).
Some small businesses may have a manager and a leader within one person; however, throughout the years of corporations and management, larger firms have found themselves to be more successful when the management is a separate job from the leadership. A manager should know their job well. Managers are often promoted from “ground work” within their trade. For example, if an employee is hired at Microsoft to do technical work on computer chips, they may be promoted in the future to be the manager of a certain division of people who only work on computer chips. This in layman’s terms would be called a “shop”, meaning an area of specific tasks and duties within a company to achieve maximum and practical output, being just one part of the entire company. Being a manager involves execution and bringing their shop of experts together to finish their tasks. Concentration on individualized tasks and micro-managing production and monitoring time and efficiency tables is the job of a manager (Boomer, 2012).
127 our experts are availableright now
Leaders fall into different categories. While a leader should be a “Jack of all trades”, and know a little bit about everything, managers generally stay in one category and know a lot about one thing. Leaders are there to innovate and help motivate managers to meet their goals. A good example ofa leader in business would be the CEO of Costco, Jim Sinegal. Sinegal is not only uniquely involved with his managers, he visits many of his stores nationwide every year to evaluate prices and make sure his employees (managers) are satisfied with the products that are sold in each individual Costco. During the recent recession Sinegal would lead his managers around the store and inquire whether the managers were monitoring prices enough. Sinegal approved of local managers in Costco lowering prices to increase morale among customers who were deeply affected by the recession. Sinegal also encourages managers to make their own decisions and inflicts a sense of personal trust in them when visiting. To top off the charisma involved in Sinegal’s “employees first” methods, he is also 80-years old (Ruggeri, 2009).
Transformational leadership and transactional leadership are both methods of leading managers and subordinates by offering rewards. Transactional leadership involves motivating employees through contingencies or physical reward systems and transformational leadership offers inspiration and contingencies through emotional satisfaction. If a leader is transactional they are more than likely involved with the mechanics of their company and monitor the labor and work level of their subordinates/employees. Transactional leaders are less personal than transformational leaders but can still offer contingencies that may be personally appropriate or meaningful. For example, a transactional leader may inspire motivation by having a contest involving the commission of its sales personnel. The offer made by a transactional leader could be “whoever sells the most cars this week, wins a free, paid, 7-day vacation.”
The vacation in a sense is a physical reward that motivates sales employees to sell more cars, therefore, helping not only the company, but the employee as well. Transformational leaders are more influential to their managers by offering options that are not tangible physically, but emotionally supportive. An example of a transformational leader’s contingency plan may be more progressive and long term than a transactional one, and is built to affect employees for a longer amount of time. A well spoken, empathetic, leader is a good transformational one. Someone who cares about the well being of their employees and understands where they are coming from makes a transformational leader. A group speech or organizing an organizational day would help transformational leader lift morale, and also create group bonds (Vito, 2014).
Whether one is a leader or a manager, one cannot do diligence without the other. Leaders motivate managers to achieve goals and managers execute tasks to achieve those goals. Using the four functions of management, a successful business cannot function without utilizing all of its resources, as unique and different as they may be.
