Leadership an Introduction

Leadership is an integral part of management and plays a vital role in managerial operations. If there is any single factor that differentiates between successful and unsuccessful organizations, it could be considered as dynamic and effective leadership. Perhaps, it would be a valid assumption to state that the major cause of most business failures would be ineffective leadership.

All managers, in a way, are business leaders, even though management primarily relies on formal position power to influence people whereas leadership stems from a social influence process.

However, management is an integral component of technical as well as social processes. A question which many a novice in Management ask and experts echo is whether “Manager” and

“Leader” is synonymous terms.

 Are the functions of the ‘Manager’ the same as those of the Leader? 

Are the two roles the same? 

Are they different? If they are – are there or rather aren’t there areas of functional similarities? To what extent do they differ in direction and/or magnitude? 

Before attempting to answer the million dollar question “Are all leaders managers or are all managers leaders?

It will be prudent to clarify the concepts of leadership and management. An extremely simplistic yet profoundly meaningful definition of leadership states it as the

“Phenomenon of one person influencing the thinking or  action or both of another person or groups of persons”.

Management has been defined in various ways by different authors. In fact, there exist almost as many definitions for management as there are authors on the topic. There is neither the scope nor the need to examine the various definitions of management in this discussion. However, two of them may be considered.

One of the earliest universally accepted definitions of management considered it as the “process of getting things done through and by people”. One of the modern definitions of management describes it as “the process of ensuring effectiveness and efficiency in achieving goals or objectives”.

From the above discussion, it is clear that whenever one influences the thinking or action or both of another person or a group, he/she is a leader and the phenomenon of leadership exists. This is so irrespective of what the “influence” aims or achieves. Even if the followers are “influenced” for some antisocial activities, the phenomenon involved is leadership and the one exhibiting it is a leader.

Managers have to influence their “people” for achieving organizational objectives, which, we assume, to be morally right and legally straight. So, all managers have a leadership role to play. But all that every leader does may not be very “Managerial”.

In short, all managers are leaders, but all leaders need not necessarily be managers. It should be remembered that this statement is made considering the roles of “leaders” and “managers” and not with reference to any individual with a managerial title or acceptance as a leader.

Categories of leaders: Based on the functions they perform, leaders can be classified into:

(i) Entrepreneurial

(ii) Administrative and

(iii) Political

(i) Entrepreneurial Leaders: As the term indicates, these are leaders who build organizations; these institution builders perform the tasks of initiation and structuring. They organize the required resources and put them in to effective and efficient use to create institutions of various sizes, nature and scope eg. Trade unions,  hospitals, schools, colleges, places of worship, cultural organizations etc.

Entrepreneurial leaders are highly motivated self starters who can get along reasonably well with a wide range of people with whom they can co-operate and from whom they can get co-operation. They will not be dispirited with setbacks and will not take “no” for an answer.

(ii) Administrative leaders: These are leaders whose performance will be at its peak when they are put in charge of running organizations they work for the maintenance and growth of the organizations; they plan, organize, staff, direct and control the organizations which may be expected to “safe” in their hands. They ensure that right men occupy right positions and that tasks are carried out effective and efficiently. 

They undertake environmental scanning and do SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis, based on which they define and redefine the mission of their organizations, set targets and objectives and formulate policies and strategies. They have a clear idea of what the organization should be at present and where it should be in the future.

(iii) Political leaders: By “political leaders” are meant those who act as representatives or spokesmen of their groups and strive for the redressal of the grievances of their groups in general and its members in particular. Many of them act on an ‘ad hoc’ basis not being very visible normally but appearing on the scene all of a sudden when a problem crops up, the tackling of which requires their attention. They may even leave the scene once the issue has been settled.