Management vs. Leadership

If you want to be successful at what you do, you have to have characteristics of both a manager and a leader. While the power of a manager comes from his or her position, the power of a leader comes from his or her influence, regardless of the position.

Even though you can become a manager by simply being appointed to the position, the level of your success depends purely on you. The first thing to do is to find the management style that suits you best, or even better, to find the management style that best suits a given business situation. There are various categorizations of management styles, and we have chosen to present you with a very interesting one, developed by Tannenbaum and Schmidt (1973).

The first style in this categorization is the authoritarian style. An autocratic manager makes all the decisions and expects the workforce to do exactly as required. The communication goes mainly downward, from the leader to the subordinates. The advantage is that the direction of business will be constant, and the decisions will all be similar, which means that the business is seen as well-organized and well-managed. The negative effects of this style are a decrease in motivation and an increase in dependence on the part of employees.

Paternalistic style is one where managers make decisions in the best interest of the people rather than the business. They focus on the social and leisure needs of their employees, encouraging motivation and loyalty. On the negative side, this management style makes people even more dependent on the manager than the autocratic style.

The most obvious characteristic of the democratic style is that employees take part in the decision-making process, which is not the case with the two above-mentioned styles. Communication is extensive in both directions. Job satisfaction and quality are improved, but the decision-making process is slowed down.

Laissez-faire (from a French phrase meaning to leave things alone) describes the practice of non-interference in the affairs of others. This style is very interesting in the sense that managers actually evade managing duties by letting their staff manage their own areas of business without too much control. This style brings out the best in creative groups, but in many cases, it is not deliberate and is simply the result of poor management, which may end up in staff lacking focus and sense of direction.

A good manager uses a combination of these styles, depending on the situation. Top managers, however, have one additional feature which makes them so successful in their area of business – and that is leadership. True leaders have a vision, which they can successfully communicate to their followers. They have great confidence in themselves and their followers, to whom they act as role models. Another leadership quality, and perhaps the most important one, is charisma; leaders simply draw people towards them.

When we talk about leaders, we usually have in mind famous political leaders such as Gandhi or Nelson Mandela, but in recent times some very successful managers have become world-famous, primarily as a result of their leadership skills; Jack Welch or Richard Branson, for example.