Through examining current academic literature, I have investigated key personality traits that are vital for management and leadership to possess in order to be successful. I then explored the differences between these traits and why it is important for an organization to have the right balance of successful leaders and successful managers. This will demonstrate that the traits of managers and leaders are interdependently linked and there must be a balance of both managers and leaders in an organization for success to be reached.

Defining Management and Leadership in the workplace Mintzberg explains management as “responsible for a whole organization or some identifiable part of it” (Mintzberg 2009, 12) and manager is defined as “organization’s taskmasters with a whip in one hand and a bullhorn for screaming out orders” (Kotterman, 2006, 13) or an “unimaginative clod” (Gardener 1990) as where leadership is defined by (Buchanan and Huczynski 2013, 652) as “the process of influencing the activities of an organized group in its efforts towards goal-setting an goal achievement” and Kotterman discusses leaders as “seen as charismatic and often are admired and held in high esteem” (Kotterman, 2006, 13).

Kotterman best explains the necessity to differentiate between managers and leaders with the following “Why do the experts believe it is important to differentiate between leadership and management? Fundamentally if you can’t define leadership or management, you can’t measure, test, make assessments or consistently hire or promote for them. Yet they are both important to a successful workplace” (Kotterman, 2006, 13). This highlights the need for a definition between managers and leaders so that the correct people can be identified and promoted into the correct roles within an organization.

Kotter discusses differences between managers and leaders in the