LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT

TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN

Introduction

1. “All men are sheep. They need a shepherd”. A hunger for creative and
compelling leadership has been one of the most universal cravings of our times. Recent
history is replete with leaders who strode across cultural, intellectual and political
horizons. Their followers loved and loathed them, marched for them, fought for them,
killed and died for them.

2. Leadership is the most important aspect of the human behavior. It gives a

positive direction to the use of human resources and brings out the best in a man. It is a
natural phenomenon of a man‟s work life. It is related to the principle of gradation and
hierarchy which is the universal order of things created by God and man. One of the
ancient definitions says, “Any person who is more than ordinarily efficient in carrying
successful psychological stimuli to others and is thus effective in conditioning collective
response may be called a leader. Leadership is an act of persuading people to co-
operate in the achievement of a common objective.” The objective might not have been
„common‟ in the first instance. It is the responsibility of the Leader to make it look so.
Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery said, “Leadership is the will and capacity to
rally men and women to a common purpose and the character which inspires
confidence.” The main emphasis is on the leader‟s capacity and will, his behavior, in
rallying people to the common purpose. The purpose might not have been common to
start with, but it devolves upon the leader to ensure that it is perceived as common by
the group members.

3. Leadership can therefore be defined as the ability of a person to mobilize and

direct the efforts of his group members for solving the group problem by relating himself
to the characteristics of the group and sensitising himself to the nature of the problem.
Since situations keep changing, therefore, the leader too must keep acquiring new
knowledge, new skills and more appropriate attitude for mobilising and directing the
efforts of his group members for the achievement of the group goal. The personal and
dynamic qualities that a leader must possess are:

(a) Courage
(b) Social Orientation
(c) Mental Ability
(d) Motivation
(e) Maturity
(f) Energy

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Management V/s Leadership

4. Management is defined by the following standards:

(a) Planning and Budgeting. Establishing detailed steps and timetables and
then allocating necessary resources.

(b) Organising and Staffing. Establishing some structure for accomplishing

the plan, staffing the structure, delegating responsibility and authority, providing
and penning policies and procedures and creating methods to monitor
implementation.

(c) Controlling and Problem solving. Monitoring results against plans,

identifying deviations and then implementing solutions to problems.

5. Leadership standards are defined as:

(a) Establishing Direction. Developing a vision for the future and

developing strategies for producing changes to achieve the vision.

(b) Aligning People. Communicating the direction to those whose

cooperation is needed to influence the creation of teams and coalitions that
understand the vision and strategies.

(c) Motivating and Inspiring. Energising people to overcome barriers to

change by satisfying basic human needs (achievement, recognition, belonging,
self-esteem, sense of control over one‟s life).

6. Leadership in Defence Forces The effectiveness of the defence services is

dependent upon its leadership - its officer corps. It is, therefore, imperative that the
military leaders make every effort to keep improving their knowledge and performance
on a continuing basis. All human activities require primarily two things for their
successful completion - will and skill. The leadership and organisation require these
qualities in greater measure than their men, because they have to tackle more complex
and difficult problems. Both these qualities of human behaviour are attainable through
training. An important aspect of this training, however, is that leaders must keep
themselves relating to the changing circumstances within the country and outside. After

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all, we know that leadership, like many other behavioral concepts, derives its meaning
more from the context than from the content.

7. Leadership is a vital force in organisations today, and effective leadership can

spell the difference between success and failure. Japanese auto maker Nissan, for
instance, was struggling along just a few years ago and seemed destined to be taken
over by another company. But the company brought in Carlos Ghosn for a final shot at
turning things around. Ghosn had already demonstrated strong management and
leadership abilities at Renault, an Italian company that had bought 33 percent
ownership of Nissan. He has subsequently led the firm back to strong profitability and
solidified its position as Japan‟s number two auto maker (behind Toyota). Leadership is
both a process and a property. As a process—focusing on what leaders actually do—
leadership is the use of non-coercive influence to shape the group or organisation‟s
goals, motivate behavior toward the achievement of those goals, and help define group
or organisational culture. As a property, leadership is the set of characteristics attributed
to individuals who are perceived to be leaders. Thus leaders are people who can
influence the behaviors of others without having to rely on force or people whom others
accept as leaders.

8. Relation between Leadership and Management From the above appended

statements, it should be clear that leadership and management are related, but they are
not the same. A person can be a manager, a leader, both, or neither. Some of the basic
distinctions between the two are summarised in Table below. At the left side of the table
are four elements that differentiate leadership from management. The two columns
show how each element differs when considered from a management and from a
leadership point of view. For example, when executing plans, managers focus on
monitoring results, comparing them with goals, and correcting deviations. In contrast,
the leader focuses on energizing people to overcome bureaucratic hurdles to reach
goals. Organisations need both management and leadership if they are to be effective.
Leadership is necessary to create change, and management is necessary to achieve
orderly results. Management in conjunction with leadership can produce orderly change,
and leadership in conjunction with management can keep the organisation properly
aligned with its environment. Indeed, perhaps part of the reason why executive
compensation has soared in recent years is the belief that management and leadership
skills reflect a critical but rare combination that can lead to organisational success.

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Activity Management Leadership

Creating an agenda Planning and Budgeting. Establishing Direction.

Establishing detailed steps Developing a vision of the future,
and timetables for achieving often the distant future,
needed results; allocating the and strategies for producing the
resources necessary to make changes needed to achieve that vision
those needed results happen

Developing a human Organising and Staffing. Aligning People. Communicating the

network for Establishing some structure direction by words and deeds to
achieving for accomplishing plan requirements, everyone whose cooperation may be
the agenda staffing that structure with individuals, needed to influence the creation of
delegating responsibility and authority teams and coalitions that understand
for carrying out the plan, providing the visions and strategies and accept
policies and procedures to help guide their validity
people, and creating methods or systems
to monitor implementation

Executing plans Controlling and Problem Solving. Motivating and Inspiring.

Monitoring results versus planning Energizing people to overcome major political,
in some detail, identifying deviations, bureaucratic, and resource barriers by satisfying
and then planning and organising to very basic, but often unfulfilled, human needs
solve these problems

Outcomes Produces a degree of predictability and Produces change, often to a dramatic degree,
order and has the potential to produce and has the potential to produce extremely
consistently major results expected by useful change (for example, new products
various stakeholders (for example, that customers want, new approaches to
for customers, always being on time; labor relations that help make a firm more
for stockholders, being on budget) competitive)

9. Power vis-à-vis Leadership and Management To fully understand

leadership or management, it is necessary to understand power. Power is the ability to
effect the behavior of others. One can have power without actually using it. For
example, a football coach has the power to bench a player who is not performing up to
par. The coach seldom has to use this power because players recognize that the power
exists and work hard to keep their starting positions. In organisational settings, there are
usually five kinds of power: legitimate, reward, coercive, referent, and expert power.

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(a) Legitimate Power Legitimate power is power granted through the

organisational hierarchy; it is the power defined by the organisation to be
accorded to people occupying a particular position. A manager can assign tasks
to a subordinate, and a subordinate who refuses to do them can be reprimanded
or even fired. Such outcomes stem from the manager‟s legitimate power as
defined and vested in her or him by the organisation. Legitimate power, then, is
authority. All managers have legitimate power over their subordinates. The mere
possession of legitimate power, however, does not by itself make someone a
leader. Some subordinates follow only orders that are strictly within the letter of
organisational rules and policies. If asked to do something not in their job
descriptions, they refuse or do a poor job. The manager of such employees is
exercising authority but not leadership.

(b) Reward Power Reward power is the power to give or withhold

rewards. Rewards that a manager may control include salary increases,
bonuses, promotion recommendations, praise, recognition, and interesting job
assignments. In general, the greater the number of rewards a manager controls
and the more important the rewards are to subordinates, the greater is the
manager‟s reward power. If the subordinate sees as valuable only the formal
organisational rewards provided by the manager, then he or she is not a leader.
If the subordinate also wants and appreciates the manager‟s informal rewards,
such as praise, gratitude, and recognition, however, then the manager is also
exercising leadership.

(c) Coercive Power Coercive power is the power to force compliance by

means of psychological, emotional, or physical threat. In the past, physical
coercion in organisations was relatively common. In most organisations today,
however, coercion is limited to verbal reprimands, written reprimands, disciplinary
layoffs, fines, demotion, and termination. Some managers occasionally go so far
as to use verbal abuse, humiliation, and psychological coercion in an attempt to
manipulate subordinates. The more punitive the elements under a manager‟s
control and the more important they are to subordinates, the more coercive
power the manager possesses. On the other hand, the more a manager uses
coercive power, the more likely he is to provoke resentment and hostility and the
less likely he is to be seen as a leader.

(d) Referent Power Compared with legitimate, reward, and coercive

power, which are relatively concrete and grounded in objective facets of
organisational life, referent power is abstract. It is based on identification,
imitation, loyalty, or charisma. Followers may react favorably because they
identify in some way with a leader, who may be like them in personality,

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background, or attitudes. In other situations, followers might choose to imitate a

leader with referent power by wearing the same kind of clothes, working the
same hours, or espousing the same management philosophy. Referent power
may also take the form of charisma, an intangible attribute of the leader that
inspires loyalty and enthusiasm. Thus a manager might have referent power, but
it is more likely to be associated with leadership.

(e) Expert Power Expert power is derived from information or expertise.

A manager who knows how to interact with an eccentric but important customer,
a scientist who is capable of achieving an important technical breakthrough that
no other company has dreamed of, and a secretary who knows how to unravel
bureaucratic red tape all have expert power over anyone who needs that
information. The more important the information and the fewer the people who
have access to it, the greater is the degree of expert power possessed by any
one individual. In general, people who are both leaders and managers tend to
have a lot of expert power.

10. Successful leaders are individuals with high levels of personal power.
Understanding the difference between personal power and granted authority is a
significant distinction. Many people have the tendency to use the words authority and
power interchangeably; however, these terms refer to two very different aspects of
leadership. Authority is the right granted from a person or organization to another to
represent or to act in a specified way. For example, a CEO of a company is given the
authority by the Board of Directors to run the company. In turn, the CEO places
managers in positions of authority over the various divisions, business units, or
departments of the organization. Power is the capacity or ability to direct or influence
the behavior of others. Former United States President, Dwight D. Eisenhower,
captured the essence of this definition when he said, "Leadership is the art of getting
someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it." Everyone
possesses the potential to be powerful. Power is a personal talent that you can develop
and use to achieve worthwhile goals. It does not depend upon title, rank, position, or
authority. It's simply the ability to motivate others to take specific actions. Authority is
granted but always has defined limits. Power is earned and can be limitless. Authority is
derived through the position. Power is derived from an individual's personal influence,
which increases effectiveness. Two leaders in exactly the same position of authority can
and will have different amounts of power. A person can possess a great deal of power
and absolutely no authority. Conversely, someone can have authority and absolutely no
power. Leaders who have not earned sufficient power sometimes make the mistake of
trying to influence others by overexerting their authority. But excessive use of authority
can cause employees to rebel in much the same way that children rebel against
restrictive parents.

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11. Difference between Leadership and Management What is the difference

between management and leadership? It is a question that has been asked more than
once and also answered in different ways. The biggest difference between managers
and leaders is the way they motivate the people who work or follow them, and this sets
the tone for most other aspects of what they do. Many people are both. They have
management jobs, but they realise that they cannot buy hearts, especially to follow
them down a difficult path, and so they act as leaders too.

12. Managers have subordinates while Leaders have followers. Managers work in an
authoritarian and transactional way while Leaders have a charismatic and
transformational style of working. Managers focus on work whereas Leaders focus on
people. Managers seek comfort and Leaders seek risk.

Subject Leader Manager

Focus Leading people Managing work
Have Followers Subordinates
Horizon Long-term Short-term
Seeks Vision Objectives
Approach Sets direction Plans detail
Decision Facilitates Makes
Power Personal charisma Formal authority
Appeal to Heart Head
Culture Shapes Enacts
Dynamic Proactive Reactive
Persuasion Sell Tell
Style Transformational Transactional
Exchange Excitement for work Money for work
Likes Striving Action
Wants Achievement Results
Risk Takes Minimizes
Rules Breaks Makes
Conflict Uses Avoids
Direction New roads Existing roads
Truth Seeks Establishes
Credit Gives Takes
Blame Takes Blames

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13. Leadership is a facet of management Leadership is just one of the

many assets a successful manager must possess. Care must be taken in distinguishing
between the two concepts. The main aim of a manager is to maximise the output of the
organisation through administrative implementation. Throughout life, we will be called to
play many roles. Two of the most important work roles relate to that of leader and
manager. In business and in government, one must be both good at both management
and relationship effective as both a manager and a leader.

Conclusion

14. Swami Vivekananda writes, “Teach yourself, teach everyone, his real nature. Call
upon the sleeping soul and see how it awakes. Power will come, glory will come, purity
will come, and everything that is excellent will come, when this sleeping soul is roused
to self-conscious activity”. The days of imitated leadership therefore, are over. The need
today is to know ourselves, accept ourselves and act ourselves. The leadership
behaviour based on this premise is sure to appeal to our soldiers, sailors and airmen,
and thereby prove effective.

15. It is vital for senior individuals in positions of great responsibility to be able to play
both roles: the boss who cannot manage will kill an organization just as fast as one who
cannot lead. But the person who can do both, are on the path to success.

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