Sumeet Pradhan Roll No.

: 10532 EMBA Assignment 1 Article Critiquing Understanding Leadership And Managers and Leaders: Are They Different? The debate between leadership and management has been continued over a period of long time. Many-a-times people use leader and manger interchangeably and often associate leadership with a position. I feel that the distinction between management and leadership is useful one, in that it helps us gain a better understanding of leadership and causes us to reflect on our own behavior, asking ourselves, "Are we really leading or managing?" So, we will be able to mark the differences between managers and leaders and develop ourselves as required. In the article Understanding Leadership the author has tried to make the readers understand leaders and highlight on the problems faced by them and how they need to address those problems. He also has identified the key skills required to be a leader. In the other article Zaleznik, the author has differentiated managers and leaders from various dimensions like personality, psychology, concept towards work, their relations with others and sense of self. Prentice in his article have identified that the people studying leadership gets carried away to study popularity, power, showmanship or wisdom in long-range planning which are just traits of leaders. The author has defined leadership as, the accomplishment of goal through the direction of human assistants. And successful leader as one who can understand peoples motivational requirements and collaborate individuals goal with groups goal so that everyone participates foe the achievements of group goal. In distinguishing manager and leader personality, Zaleznik argues that managerial culture emphasized rationality and control and a manager is merely a problem solver. He further states that it takes neither genius nor heroism to be a manager, but rather persistence, tough-mindedness, hard work, intelligence, analytical ability, and perhaps most important, tolerance and goodwill. Isnt it intelligence and analytical ability that makes one genius? "There is a profound difference between management and leadership, and both are important. To manage means to bring about, to accomplish, to have charge of or responsibility for or to conduct. Leading is influencing, guiding in a direction, course, action, opinion. The distinction is crucial" Warren Bennis. The comparison done by him is shown below: The manager administers; the leader innovates. The manager is a copy; the leader is an original. The manager maintains; the leader develops. The manager focuses on systems and structure; the leader focuses on people. The manager relies on control; the leader inspires trust. The manager has a short-range view; the leader has a long-range perspective. The manager asks how and when; the leader asks what and why. Managers have their eyes on the bottom line; leaders have their eyes on the horizon. The manager imitates; the leader originates. The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it. The manager is the classic good soldier; the leader is his own person.
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The manager does things right; the leader does the right thing. Abraham Zaleznik has all along the article focused on to differentiate the leaders from managers which are similar to the findings of other studies of Warren Bennis. The characteristics of leaders defined by him are similar to the one that Prentice has made to define leaders. Both have identified leaders as the messenger of change as they change how people think about whats desirable and possible and take the company to new direction. Both articles define leaders as one who has new ideas to address problems, risk takers in terms of taking decisions. Zalezniks focus is on to differentiate leaders and managers and then has suggested two ways to develop leaders. One to avoid over-reliance from peer learning situation which stifle aggressiveness and initiative that fuel leadership and other to cultivate one on one relationship between mentors and apprentices to encourage intense emotional interchange, tolerance of competitive impulses, and eagerness to challenge ideas to develop essential characteristics of leadership in the apprentice. But Prentices article focuses on problems faced by leaders. As each human is different and have varieties of needs as per varied responses to different emotional dimension, leaders have to identify it and address it. People have their preferences changed from time to time and leaders have to identify it. The author also mentions that employees are brought up to consider the employers as natural enemies so any decisions taken are always challenged and leaders are prepared for it. But the managers due to their approach of not taking any risk and only following the traditional procedure and just trying to operational functionality have fewer problems. Both the articles have identified leaders as superior humans and argue that managers are only a problem solver. But sometimes it is required by the situation to perpetuate conflict rather than solving it immediately after its occurrence and managers are expert in doing so. Both authors sounded very offensive toward managers and tried to justify that leadership is superior to managerial actions. Both articles arguments are neither supported by any empirical data nor matches with the theoretical insight and hence cannot be fully relied upon. They have tried to present examples to clarify their views but the absence of empirical data puts a big question. Also, if leadership is emotional and empathetic as they have discussed, leadership should identify the anxiety created due to relative disorder and take proactive approach in grooming managers to take future responsibilities. Had Zalexnik highlighted the development role a leader plays, the article would be more balanced and strengthen his statement but putting both articles together we can surely identify the features of managers and leaders. The articles also make us clear from various examples that different situation or position of a company also requires different type of company head. A company in its introduction and growth stage would prefer a leader to manager, so that he can give into fresh ideas and take risk for company development. But a company after completion of growth stage would require a manager as a head just as in the case of Apple which was headed by Steve Jobs, a charismatic leader during its inception and later was headed by John Sculley who focused on financial gains. But for companys growth Apple again recalled Steve Jobs. So, managers and leaders both have their importance during different phases of the company. About the articles, I would like to mention again that after going through both I can now identify leaders from managers. But the authors have derived conclusions based of their perception with most of the examples from European world and the analyses presented do not seem research based.

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In my view, manager refers to handle where as leader refers to move ahead. Managers are mainly concerned with the problem at hand, they focus on what has to be done where as Leaders focus on how to get it done. Managers want quick solutions to the problems in hand but the leaders analyses it before jumping into quick solution as they want to do the right things. To be an effective leader, it is important to focus on the deep analysis of a situation, look for opportunities and how to achieve them. Leaders believe on vision. But having vision is not the only thing that separates managers form leaders. The leader must understand that his subordinates have to have participation in the sense that they own the companys goal as personal goal. Leaders have the ability to draw clear lines of authority for subordinates and make them feel he is one of them. A leader has to ability to take the group along with his directions and act as mentor and help for the subordinates growth. Power to managers is achieved by its position where as power to leaders comes from support, i.e., manager power over people and leader power with people. Managers are good in discipline and managing certain objectives by being efficient and leaders are more supportive, creative but sometimes lack the quality of getting the right thing done as efficiently as possible. As per John Kotter Leadership and management are two distinctive and complementary systems of action. Both are necessary for success in an increasingly complex and volatile business environment. The fact is that leadership and management are both important, they are two distinctive systems of action, both are necessary, and each seeks to do different things. The table below gives the sense of difference between leaders and managers. Subject Essence Focus Have Horizon Seeks Approach Decision Power Appeal to Energy Culture Dynamic Persuasion Style Exchange Likes Wants
Assignment 1 Article Critiquing

Leader Change Leading people Followers Long-term Vision Sets direction Facilitates Personal charisma Heart Passion Shapes Proactive Sell Transformational Excitement for work Striving Achievement

Manager Stability Managing work Subordinates Short-term Objectives Plans detail Makes Formal authority Head Control Enacts Reactive Tell Transactional Money for work Action Results
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Risk Rules Conflict Direction Truth Concern Credit Blame

Takes Breaks Uses New roads Seeks What is right Gives Takes

Minimizes Makes Avoids Existing roads Establishes Being right Takes Blames

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