
Leadership and Management – Relationship & Differences
Leadership and Management – Relationship & Differences
Leadership and management are the terms that are often considered synonymous. It is essential to understand that leadership is an essential part of effective management. As a crucial component of management, remarkable leadership behaviour stresses upon building an environment in which each and every employee develops and excels. Leadership is defined as the potential to influence and drive the group efforts towards the accomplishment of goals. This influence may originate from formal sources, such as that provided by acquisition of managerial position in an organization.
A manager must have traits of a leader, i.e., he must possess leadership qualities. Leaders develop and begin strategies that build and sustain competitive advantage. Organizations require robust leadership and robust management for optimal organizational efficiency.
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Differences between Leadership and Management
Leadership differs from management in a sense that:
- While managers lay down the structure and delegates authority and responsibility, leaders provides direction by developing the organizational vision and communicating it to the employees and inspiring them to achieve it.
- While management includes focus on planning, organizing, staffing, directing and controlling; leadership is mainly a part of directing function of management. Leaders focus on listening, building relationships, teamwork, inspiring, motivating and persuading the followers.
- While a leader gets his authority from his followers, a manager gets his authority by virtue of his position in the organization.
- While managers follow the organization’s policies and procedure, the leaders follow their own instinct.
- Management is more of science as the managers are exact, planned, standard, logical and more of mind. Leadership, on the other hand, is an art. In an organization, if the managers are required, then leaders are a must/essential.
- While management deals with the technical dimension in an organization or the job content; leadership deals with the people aspect in an organization.
- While management measures/evaluates people by their name, past records, present performance; leadership sees and evaluates individuals as having potential for things that can’t be measured, i.e., it deals with future and the performance of people if their potential is fully extracted.
- If management is reactive, leadership is proactive.
- Management is based more on written communication, while leadership is based more on verbal communication.
The organizations which are over managed and under-led do not perform upto the benchmark. Leadership accompanied by management sets a new direction and makes efficient use of resources to achieve it. Both leadership and management are essential for individual as well as organizational success.

Leader versus Manager
“Leadership and managership are two synonymous terms” is an incorrect statement. Leadership doesn’t require any managerial position to act as a leader. On the other hand, a manager can be a true manager only if he has got the traits of leader in him. By virtue of his position, manager has to provide leadership to his group. A manager has to perform all five functions to achieve goals, i.e., Planning, Organizing, Staffing, Directing, and Controlling. Leadership is a part of these functions. Leadership as a general term is not related to managership. A person can be a leader by virtue of qualities in him. For example: leader of a club, class, welfare association, social organization, etc. Therefore, it is true to say that, “All managers are leaders, but all leaders are not managers.”
A leader is one who influences the behavior and work of others in group efforts towards achievement of specified goals in a given situation. On the other hand, manager can be a true manager only if he has got traits of leader in him. Manager at all levels are expected to be the leaders of work groups so that subordinates willingly carry instructions and accept their guidance. A person can be a leader by virtue of all qualities in him.
Leaders and Managers can be compared on the following basis:
Basis | Manager | Leader |
Origin | A person becomes a manager by virtue of his position. | A person becomes a leader on basis of his personal qualities. |
Formal Rights | Manager has got formal rights in an organization because of his status. | Rights are not available to a leader. |
Followers | The subordinates are the followers of managers. | The group of employees whom the leaders leads are his followers. |
Functions | A manager performs all five functions of management. | Leader influences people to work willingly for group objectives. |
Necessity | A manager is very essential to a concern. | A leader is required to create cordial relation between person working in and for organization. |
Stability | It is more stable. | Leadership is temporary. |
Mutual Relationship | All managers are leaders. | All leaders are not managers. |
Accountability | Manager is accountable for self and subordinates behaviour and performance. | Leaders have no well defined accountability. |
Concern | A manager’s concern is organizational goals. | A leader’s concern is group goals and member’s satisfaction. |
Followers | People follow manager by virtue of job description. | People follow them on voluntary basis. |
Role continuation | A manager can continue in office till he performs his duties satisfactorily in congruence with organizational goals. | A leader can maintain his position only through day to day wishes of followers. |
Sanctions | Manager has command over allocation and distribution of sanctions. | A leader has command over different sanctions and related task records. These sanctions are essentially of informal nature. |