Leadership and Management.

.’’ The need for leaders has always been important, and it has never been more urgent. The constant, accelerating, unpredictable change in today’s competitive environment demands more and better leadership. People at all organizational levels and in all sectors want to be inspired. (Blank, Warren 2001)

In order to discuss leadership and management we must first recognize that they are in fact the two are different but linked. In essence it could be said that the managers role is to plan, while the leader inspires. The manager organizes while the leader motivates staff including the manager.

“There is (has and probably always will be) a debate about the differences and overlaps of leadership and management. Current opinion is that they are different concepts but they overlap considerably.”

(Adair, John; Thomas, Neil (Editor). p 118.)

In his book “On Becoming a Leader,” Warren Bennis listed what he considered to be the differences between the two:

Manager Leader
Administer Innovates
Maintains Develops
Focuses on structures and systems Focuses on people
Relies on control Relies and inspires trust
Asks how and when Asks what and why
Imitates Originates
Accepts the status quo Challenges the status quo
Does things right Does the right thing

As we have seen the development of leadership and management over time it could be argued that in the past the two did not go hand in hand, In the past the manager of a factory may not have given consideration what was being built or made or who was making it but in the modern economy what Druker identified was the emergence of the knowledge worker and the differences that this would mean to the modern workforce With the rise of the knowledge worker, “one does not ‘manage’ people,” Mr. Drucker wrote. “The task is to lead people. And the goal is to make productive the specific