Leaders And Managers example essay topic

Management and Leadership Are you a manager or a leader? This is a question that has been asked from consultants to corporations. An organization needs both management and leadership. It is good for a corporation to understand the differences between the both. I think Leaders and Managers have very clear and distinct qualities but highly interconnect together. Skilled set management and leadership are needed to achieve organizational goals.

Depending on the size of an organization, management and leadership roles may be carried out by the same person, or by multiple managers who carry out the two roles. I believe that a leader is one who guides people in a certain direction to accomplish a certain goal. Every business needs leadership. Leadership is on of the ways managers affect the behavior of people in the company.

In history most of the great accomplishes became leaders for an unpredictable special quality they had that let them rise to the occasion when needed. In an organization today, a leader may not necessarily be the CEO of a company. The CEO will oversee the company as a whole, whereas a manager or supervisor of a department will be the point of contact that an employee will look to for direction. Being a leader is not the same as being a manager. A leader can lead people in a certain direction, whereas a manager can manage people in their jobs. Management has put together people in groups or organizations that will help the company drive to improvements.

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. Managers have a position of authority vested in them by the company, and their subordinates work for them and largely do as they are told. Ideally, you will develop managers that can lead and leaders that can manage. Most successful managers are also successful leaders. Many leaders, even the brightest, figure out what has to happen with things in the company, tell people what is needed for the desired results and then expect things to happen-a gross simplification of the process. An organization that uses work teams has a leader whose task is to bring everyone together to work as a team.

Every one shares the same vision and wants to accomplish the same task. With out a leader, employees can be distracted and misled as to the mission that affects the company as a whole. Motivation is a key factor which both leadership and management must possess; with out this, employees have nothing to look forward to. Their motivation would have to rise above the average and take personal responsibility for the outcome of the task. It is good to have a participate leader that likes to receive input from others and aims for balance. This leader feels that by involving others in the decision making process will help alleviate conflicts in the workplace.

In my organization, there seems to be both types of leaders. In my particular department, there is the participate leader who likes to get everyone's involvement and opinions when a major decision needs to be made. In the other departments I have seen the other leader who does not involve the department at all, and makes decisions on their own. This has caused his department to not be so successful like ours. His employees to do not want to follow his lead because they do not feel they are part of the team. They feel that their opinions do not count and if they make a suggestion, it will not be taken into consideration at all.

Organization is another factor that is important for a leader or manager to have to become successful because it helps one prepare for what lies ahead and not be taken by surprise. In today's business, to be organized and ahead of your competition is an approach that needs to be taken seriously and that is very demanding for a corporation or small business to have. Keeping the organization in control would take away stressful problems and would have the company running smoothly. Today, new more competition is lifting and new technology is developing every where around the world. Organizing a great market scheme for the corporation and staying ahead of the technology that is in place can create great accomplishment. Planning and organizing are essential to the success of any manager or leader.

For example, in my organization it helps to plan and be organized for any thing. Customer orders are very important to us to ship on time, with the best product the customer asks for. A great deal of planning and organizing is put into an order that is placed by our customers. As a manufacturing Oil company it takes many procedures to manufacture a tool. It is very critical to plan right and make sure every thing is organized. The organization takes place from having the tool drawn up by the engineer, to place an order to get iron to make the tool, to dealing with any out side process vendors, to scheduling the order to the right machines and then so on to finishing the entire product or tool.

The CEO of our company sets a vision for us to follow; it is up to the leaders or managers of each department to help us stay focused and make that vision a reality. Objectives are clearly defined each year, and we all know in which direction to head. If this was not clearly outlined, we would not know what the task was and would not be able to reach the ultimate goal. As a result, the role of management in the American workforce has shifted, and today's managers, more and more, have to develop some leadership skills. Leadership talent is even more essential to success on an executive level.