This essay attempts to elucidate the differences between leadership and management, and to

distinguish between leaders and managers. Typically, “leadership” and “management” are two
entirely different functions based on their ideologies, functions and outcomes. Similarly, leaders
and managers undertake different functions in the organizations, exhibit different behaviors
because of their different extrinsic and intrinsic motivations. According to Moh. Barid Nizarudin
Wajdi, management in general is a process that is used to achieve organizational goals while
the two components of leadership is influencing individuals to obtain a common goal and
developing a vision. However, these terms are often unclear to many people, leading to wrong
use or interchangeable use of words. And if this unclear understanding remains unchanged,
organizations could not appreciate the talents of their personnel, and place each of them in the
right positions to boost their productivity.

This essay points out while leaders are visionaries, motivate their teammates, take risks based
on long-term gains, encourage and thrive on open debate, managers act as administrators,
oversee and regulate what people do, take risks in hopes of short-term results, provide direction
and expect compliance. It also discusses the intersections of the roles of leaders and managers.

The first recognizable difference between leaders and managers is that, managers focus on the
results meanwhile leaders pay more attention to the whole process. In other words, leaders are
responsible for the product and how to make it, including workforce, equipment and the formula.
A good leader have to know thoroughly about the plan and stick closely to the performance to
be aware immediately if there is any problem or something go wrong. Therefore, the leader’s
aim is to observe the people and their work in order to give the solution and assistance if
needed. The leaders need to survey and directly deal with the difficulties because they are the
people who know the issue the best. On the other hand, managers supervise their employees’
work and set timeline, planning for the perfect final result. It could be said that managers are in
long-term run, they have to base on the market enviroment to make decisions and apply
accurate approaches to solve any possible problems. A leader is a person who gives
permission and assignment to his or her inferior to do the job that is leading to the
predetermined outcome. In short, leaders are responsible for the quality and value of the
product by encouraging the members while managers’ role is to bring the profit to the company
by forcing their employees.

After having pointed out the different roles of leaders and managers, this paragraph will
continue to discuss another main difference between them: the way of executing work and tasks.
On the one hand, leaders tend to motivate their employees by various methods. Firstly, leaders
usually try providing role models and examples to show how the work needs to be done instead
of lecturing their followers (Leaders vs. Managers - Buhler, Patricia). Also, leaders always put
more effort into engaging everybody in work through honest, direct, regular conversations and
then give them credits whenever contribution is made. And don’t just stop at engaging, leaders
will let their team do their job because they trust their employees and want to give them the
opportunity to increase their value in the co-operation. (Managers vs. Leaders - Voigt, Brian;
Guariglia, Joseph).

On the other hand, managers seem to be more practical when they tend to rely on their
legitimate power to regulate their employees, to finish works through others. (Managers vs.
leaders - Colvard, James E) Moreover they usually only focus on results, on how much product
did their team make, how much overtime did their employees work, did everyone record their
time correctly, and do the statistics turn out to better than last month? (4 differences between
managers and leaders - Doug Plucknette).

Regarding the process of executing work between leaders and managers, there are several
points that can clearly differentiate them, based on the act of taking risks. On the one hand,
leaders are often known as risk seekers, as they take risks for the sake of long-term benefit.
They do not avoid taking risks if they find overcoming difficulties help their followers be more
efficient at work, and build their own value by having experience as well as knowledge. For
example, leaders often invest on durable equipment and qualified human resources. Thereby,
they may help increase the value of company in long-term future, as well as develop the
potential of their workers.

On the other hand, managers would be known as comfort seekers, as they often focus on the
quality of work, rather than people working for them. Thereby, they avoid conflicts and
difficulties to get the work done fast and precisely, to receive profit. They do take risks, but base
on short-term gains, which mean they may utilize the full capacity of equipment without keeping
in good repair and push employees’ potential, for example, to the highest level to get the best
result. This would bring huge profit in a short time, but would not benefit for the company’s value
in long-term future.

After showing the differences between leaders and managers, it is believed that each job has its
own role. On the one hand, managers are the ones who apply the directives and they require
their employees to follow exactly the managers' ideals. The information that they give
employees is carefully filtered in their own way so they could not be changed or modified. To
them, delivering opinions and arguing against their opinions is considered a big threat of
disobedience. As for the leaders, they require their employees to possess creative and critical
thinking and actively contribute more ideas to improve the work. Leaders are into challenges.
They master the mindset that nothing is impossible and they encourage every individual to think
and act the same. Both functions are of importance in final-decision-making process.

Leadership and management are interrelated, and may sometime undertake a similar function
and accomplish the same tasks. The point is that being a manager is not bad and being a
leader is not better. It is argued that in order to exploit the full potential of their human and other
resources, future organizations need to develop as many leaders as possible, but that these
leaders should also have adequate management knowledge and capabilities. Organizations
also need effective managers who possess sufficient leadership skills for better problem solving
and overall functioning in the teams. For that reason, rather than seeking to establish
distinctions between managers and leaders, both leaders and managers should employ a mix of
leadership and management behaviors in an attempt to combine the necessary skills to direct
day-to-day affairs effectively (a role traditionally associated with management), while at the
same time anticipating and managing change (the main role in leadership). There is increasingly
a need for more leadership at all levels of the organization and to fulfill that need, managers
have to become better in leadership.

The distinctions as well as the overlapping part between “leadership” and “management” and
between “leaders” and “managers” have been thoroughly analyzed. However, it is clear that
today’s organizations need both leaders and managers. Leaders with managerial capabilities
and managers with leadership qualities are indispensable in augmenting an organization’s
productivity and competitiveness in the market. Therefore, it is essential that organizations
adopt tactics to develop their highly-educated workforce into managers who are effective
leaders as well. These managers can then perform a leadership function. For this purpose,
leadership development should be integrated into an organizational strategy because it is a
source of competitive benefit.