OBA Essays- Managers & Leadership
What is the relationship between management and leadership?
Introduction- Definitions of Leadership & Management
Stodgill (1974): there are almost as many definitions of leadership as there are persons
who have attempted to define the concept.
Rauch & Behling’s (1984) defines leadership as the process of influencing the activities of
an organized group toward goal achievement.
o Leaders provide organisational direction through long-term vision and inspiring
employees to achieve this vision.
Kotterman (2006): management is about coping with complexity and bringing about
order and consistency by drawing up formal plans, designing rigid organisation
structures monitoring results against plan and generally overseeing day to day affairs.
o Zaleznik (1977)- managers are concerned about how things get done & leaders
are concerned with what things mean to people
Management is boundary-enforcing. Leadership is boundary breaking for it is about
coping with change, developing a vision for the future, aligning people by
communicating this vision and inspiring them to overcome hurdles.
Organisations need both effective management and strong leadership for optimal
efficiency.
By evaluating the different theories of leadership, we build a picture of how leadership
relates to management.
P1: Management Theory
Before analysing the various leadership theories and their connections to management,
it is important to first validate whether there is any relationship between management
and leadership by evaluating current management research.
Mintzberg (1990): studied foremen, factory supervisors, staff managers, presidents, and
gang leaders in the US and the UK to derive role of management
o Observed that managers work at a fast pace, spending an average of less than 9
minutes on an activity but working all day long.
o Manager must have many different roles:
Figurehead role
The liaison with external contacts role
The negotiator
The disturbance handler
The resource allocator.
o These roles fulfil the boundary-enforcing definition of management which
Robbins, Judge & Campbell (2018) referred to as the technical skills of
management.
However, managers are also the business environment monitor, the information
disseminator, the spokesperson and the entrepreneur.
o These roles reflect more what we have defined a leader as: who motivates
employees and vests them with potential power, who looks for new
opportunities to improve the business unit and adapt it to environmental
changes, and who sets a long-term vision for the organisation.
, o Boundary-enhancing roles and revolve around communication and verbal
interactions.
The role of communication is examined by Mintzberg’s (1990) study of 5 US CEOs, spend
78% of their time in verbal communication, favouring verbal media, phone calls,
meetings over documents and reports. Leadership roles based on communication give
managers the opportunity to motivate employees and shape their work attitude, such as
speeches to lobby for a cause or a meeting as a chance to discuss reasons why a
department is not doing well.
SO management activities go beyond simply planning and controlling (traditional
management).
o Luthans (1977) examined that successful managers, defined as those gaining
speedy promotions, only spent 12% of their time on traditional management,
and effective managers, defined as those with high employee commitment, only
spent 19% of their time on traditional management.
This stresses the importance of leadership roles within management activities, validating
the need to assess leadership theory with regards to its influence on management.
P2: Trait Theory
Advocated by (Stogdill (1974) and argues that good leaders are born
Theory states that the individual is key but the context is not defining in the
establishment of leadership
o Some people are born to be a leader and these people deserve to be in their
position due to their unique traits
The exact traits vary within the literature but can be summarised in The Big Five
Personality Framework: extraversion, conscientiousness, and openness to experience.
Garvin (2013) also highlights Google’s eight characteristics of a leader which include
being a good coach, empowering the team, expressing interest in team members’
success, being a good communicator who listens and shares information, helping
employees with career development, and having a clear vision and strategy for the
team.
o Stress importance of communication and employee management in being a
leader.
Theory Analysis:
o Trait theory suggests a one size fits all leadership framework of innate skills
o Theory infers there is no potential for learning, suggesting no work or effort can
be put into becoming a leader, therefore not suggesting any actions individuals
can take
o Most of the traits associated with a ‘leader’ in this theory are inherent masculine
& do not match the real psychology of good leaders
Critical Assessments in relation to Management:
o Link between management and leadership in this theory is vague
o Theory argues that managers are also leader only if they were born with a certain
set of traits. If they do not possess these traits, then they are just managers and
cannot be leaders.
o However, in reality, not all traits are necessary to be both a leader and a
manager e.g. Steve Jobs provided a great vision and strategy for Apple but was
not a good coach for employees.
