Organization heads play a major role in determining the success of an entity. Such heads include business leaders and managers serving at different levels of the organization. The world often confuses the two positions; a business leader and a manager. Often, people with the role of leading businesses adopt the manager’s mentality or way of doing things while still maintaining the title of a leader. On the other hand, business managers controlling companies and subsidiaries frequently assume the title of a leader. The inability to distinguish these two terms is the primary cause of this confusion. Worse still, there exist several individuals in positions of power who are neither leaders nor managers. This third category falls under the special group called office holders. Organizations require leaders and managers to meet their set goals. Businesses can progress by understanding the meaning and operations of these two critical administrative positions. The following work seeks to unravel the issue by delineating the two concepts. Accordingly, proactiveness, direction setting, people alignment, and inspiration are crucial features that differentiate business leaders from managers.
Managers require existing organizations to work, while leaders can start a firm and lead it to success. According to Kotter (2001), managers are good at planning and budgeting, reiterating the need for an operational firm to work. Planning means comparing an organization’s needs and available resources and apportioning material to the various requirements. Kotter (2001) refers to planning as the comparison between an entity’s resources stream and the daily utilization of such material to estimate the survival prospects of a business. The same facet relates to budgeting, which connotes the proper material scheduling for effective utilization and profit maximization (Kotter, 2001). Budgeting means a firm already exists with the manager’s primary work being to control waste and surplus to ensure profitability and endurance. Budgeting and planning imply the manager’s work to be primarily controlling things. Therefore, a business or organization must be there for the managers to control resources. Thus, managers generally look at the company’s workforce and compare it with the available work to make the necessary changes.
Leading denotes setting direction, unlike controlling issues in an organization. A leader hardly requires a firm to exist to exercise his or her responsibilities. Therefore, a business leader can spot a market gap, locate the necessary resources, gather them and use them to begin an organization (Kakemam et al., 2020). The leader remains proactive by understanding the market and foreseeing future trends, which he or she adopts appropriate strategies to absorb. Unlike managers who work hard to repel change, business leaders are unique in always finding ways to utilize the foreseen change for the organization’s benefit. For example, many twentieth-century giant businesses operating under managers struggled to prevent computers and information technology from disrupting their operations. The entities’ management purposed to maintain the status quo by ensuring operational counter tactics are in force. However, most such businesses are non-existent today because of being in managers’ control. Leaders such as the late Steve Jobs and Reed Hastings of Apple and Netflix, respectively, prepared their organizations appropriately by setting the right directions (Lee & Lee, 2020). The two firms dominate their markets due to the visionary leaders’ leadership ability.
Working hard to organize and staff organizations distinguish managers from leaders. Organizing means putting things into a systematic order or preparing for an event. Managers aim to protect their organizations from shocks by ensuring a fluent flow of things and human resources. The group works with set schedules and formulas with minimal room for amendments. That is because such plans come from a lived past, that managers believe, informs the future. Under managers, people learn a unique role to undertake at the place of work. Specialization is a common aspect under the management group, which makes people less flexible in case of changes. Therefore, managers produce a highly rigid workforce that aims to work and retire while undertaking single or related job roles (Seidman et al., 2020). Employees’ freedom is not common under managers as people must abide by set job rules and procedures. That is why creativity is often not a feature of organizations under managers, as per Seidman et al. (2020). Accordingly, managers use threats to tease workers who try new ways that the business heads do not understand or do not comply with the set rules.
Leaders work to align people instead of using rules and regulations to dictate them. Many businesses operating under leaders have fewer rules, if any (Kakemam et al., 2020). Employees do not know one or two aspects of the business’s operations but comprehend almost every line. The leaders highly cherish creativity and reward it, unlike under the management system. Netflix remains an excellent case of a contemporary business operating under a leader (Lee & Lee, 2020). The firm is a market leader in the subscription movies sector after overtaking the formerly dominant tech-repellant Blockbuster in the 1990s (Lee & Lee, 2020). The organization does not have rules to control employees like in other entities. The administration ensures workforce alignment by adopting operational tactics that decide who gets into the firm as an employee, who remains, and the working method. Netflix employs some of the best talents in the job market, grants them all the freedom to innovate and work freely, and rewards them exemplary based on personal productivity (Lee & Lee, 2020). The alignment explains the firm’s dominance in a highly competitive sector despite being significantly young.
Managers control activities and solve business-related challenges to ensure continuity. Using laws, regulations, and threats makes controlling and managing things possible. Managers often set laws that protect their authority to command issues without involving employees. Individuals embracing organizational management instead of leadership use authority to scare people. Irresponsible firing and unplanned hiring are common features in entities under managers (Kakemam et al., 2020). Employee turnover is high as a result of this managerial challenge. People remain in the office presenting issues that the manager must spend time resolving. Mistakes resulting from bling utilization of formulas force the managers to remain inside offices resolving customer issues or concerns regarding a failed line of products. Seeking control of things and being ready to solve problems wastes the managers’ time, leading to minimal organizational progress (Kotter, 2001). Leaders avoid these problems by being motivational and inspiring (Kotter, 2001). The leaders make every employee feel like part of the organization, thus working without passion and pressure. Therefore, managers’ desire to control activities and ensure stability by spending time solving problems makes entities under manager’s poor performers relative to those under leaders.
In conclusion, there exists a clear difference between business leaders and managers. For example, managers require existing organizations to work, unlike leaders. Managers work hard to govern and staff businesses through the use of rules. Similarly, managers control activities and solve business-related challenges to ensure continuity. On the other hand, leading denotes setting direction and not controlling issues in an organization. A leader hardly requires a firm to exist to exercise his or her responsibilities. Equally, leaders work to align people instead of using rules and regulations to dictate them. Leaders beat managers in workforce administration by being motivational and inspiring.
References
Kakemam, E., Liang, Z., Janati, A., Arab-Zozani, M., Mohaghegh, B., & Gholizadeh, M. (2020). Leadership and management competencies for hospital managers: A systematic review and best-fit framework synthesis. Journal of Healthcare Leadership, 12, 59.
Kotter, P. J. (2001). What Leaders Really Do. Haverd Business Review.
Lee, H., & Lee, S. (2020). Creative industry digital transformation case study: Market reorganization strategy and platform. Journal of Digital Convergence, 18(7), 177-188.
Seidman, G., Pascal, L., & McDonough, J. (2020). What benefits do healthcare organizations receive from leadership and management development programmes? A systematic review of the evidence. BMJ Leader, leader-2019.