Leadership, in addition to solid character and certain characteristics, is often associated with prestige. This can be explained by the fact that not any individual can be called a leader, but only a person who possesses certain skills. Such skills, as, for example, the ability to listen or enter into the situation of others, together with the unique and specialized knowledge, allow an individual to effectively engage in managerial activities. Although every organization has employees who are engaged in managerial activities, not everyone can be called a true professional leader. Are You a True Leader or Just a Boss? explores how to distinguish an effective leader from a mere boss, focusing on the crucial aspects that create the weighty distinctions.
First of all, it is important to note that I liked the objectivity and relevance of the information in this article. The fact is that it contrasts a leader and a boss and portrays the latter as lacking in competence and even as a negative character of professional reality. To counter this view, bosses have also become culturally entrenched as somewhat absurd, aggressive, and egotistical characters, as they are portrayed in movies, for example (Schooley, 2019). The article points out several important aspects, such as the rejection of power. Bosses use their position to give commands and distribute responsibility among employees, expecting quick solutions to problems (Schooley, 2019). The leader uses other levers, such as influence, to maximize the workers’ potential with motivation. As practice shows, this approach is much more effective because properly motivated employees work better than those for whom it is just a necessity.
This reasoning is relevant in particular to my life experience. The fact is that I have worked in several organizations, doing small part-time jobs for schoolchildren and students. The point is that bosses try to manage with rigidity and fear, that is, the “mistake-punishment” scheme works. With this approach, the purpose of work is not to do as much as possible or better, but to think constantly about how not to make mistakes, for which then have to take responsibility. In the leader’s case, the opposite is true because they spend so much time and energy trying to engage employees and make the work they do relevant and special. In other words, leaders try to create a psychologically comfortable atmosphere as much as possible.
However, I cannot say that I do not disagree. The matter is that the article misses the approach to the given question in which leadership and management are considered as the group processes connected with social power in a group. The leader and the manager are understood as a person who has a leading influence on the group: the leader – in the system of informal relations, the manager – in the system of formal relations. The phenomena of leadership and management are close in their psychological essence, but they do not coincide completely, as the leader is most often focused on the task of joint activity, and the leader – on the group interests. The distinction between the concepts of “leader” and “boss” is associated with the existence of two types of relationships in any organization – formal and informal. Leadership is a process of influencing people generated by a system of informal relations, and leadership implies, first of all, the presence of clearly structured formal relations through which it is implemented. The role of a leader is as if pre-determined by the formal structure; their role is usually clearly defined, the right to sanction is not contested. Leadership, by contrast, is formed spontaneously, at the level of semi-conscious psychological preferences. In any case, Are You a True Leader or Just a Boss? is relevant and true, and ignoring the aspect of the division of relationships into formal and informal in no way affects the quality of the information in the article.
Reference
Schooley, S. (2019). Are You a True Leader or Just a Boss? Business News Daily.