Defining Leadership; Leader VS Manager

Leadership is known to be the oldest preoccupation in the world. Leadership has long been an important debate topic as well as a driver of innovation for centuries. Leadership is said to be an important quality of a manager but not every manager is a leader. Both a leader and a manager are crucial for the success of an organization. However, organizations usually do not clearly differentiate between the two.It is very important to differentiate between a leader and a manager to know what can make the workplace successful. The main difference between leaders and managers is how they motivate the people.

[adsense1]A proper understanding of the definition of leadership can help to differentiate between a leader and a manager. The smallest definition of the leadership can be: an influence relationship between the leaders and their followers who intend to bring real changes that serve their mutual purposes. (Rost. Pp 103. 1993). Now this definition tells us that leaders have followers not subordinates. It’s the managers that have subordinates and have a more authoritarian control. Following a manager is something one has to do to keep the job going but in case of the leader it is totally voluntary and one is inspired to follow the leader.

A famous quotation and definition of leadership given by Edwin H. Friedman is “Leadership can be thought of as a capacity to define oneself to others in a way that clarifies and expands a vision of the future”. From this we can infer that leaders use charisma, they assure the followers of transformational benefits.

Leaders can motivate and lead to the change. Leaders are often achievement-focused and they try to motivate the people/followers towards the vision and mission.