Leadership and Management, Prepared By Abdullah. Research Papers: 1.

Hester Nienaber, Conceptualization of leadership and management, 2010, Management Decision, Vol 48. 2. William W. McCartney and Constance R. Campbell, Leadership, Management and derailment, 2005. Leadership and Organization development Journal, Vol 27.

After reviewing both research papers, an attempt has been made here to explain both management and leadership terms, and how they are interwoven. A background was given, followed by a review of both terms, ending with an content and task analysis of each term.

Background Leadership, as a broad concept, has existed form the beginning of the first interactions of humankind (Humphreys, 2005), while management has been practiced since time immemorial as do the records form early civilizations suggest (Hodgetts, 1975). However, the documented body of knowledge relating to leadership and management is relatively new (Nienaber and Roodt, 2008). Grace (2003) views that the root of the word Leadership (Greek and Latin) dates back to 800 CE(Common Era), while the root word of Management (French) appeared in 1598 CE. The concept of management of people had appeared in the textual records by 1809, 30 years before the word Leadership (Grace, 2003). Since the 20th century, these terms have been associated with the discipline of management and leadership.

Leadership and Management Leadership is often made synonymous with managership or management by some, while separated by others. Debates continue however, concerning the concepts of management and leadership, and how do they relate to executive success. A famous perspective regarding this is the one noted by Knootz(1964) that leadership and management are distinct skill sets, that differ from each other to such an extent

that its unlikely for them to co-exist in a single individual. Zalezicks(1977) on the contrary states that the distinction between management and leadership are both broad and sharp, indicating for example, that leaders and managers differ in motivation, personal history and in how they think and act. Hickmans (1990) viewpoint provides an implicit support for the less likely interpersonal occurrence of leadership and management in his suggestions that would result in a competitive advantage for the organization through embracing the natural tension between leaders and managers. Another view of management and leadership is that one construct is a subset of the other, such that one individual is likely to possess both leadership and management skills. Knootz(1964) for example believed that managers must have leadership skills but leadership is just another part of the management pie, but that there is a good part of leadership that cant be considered as a subset of management. In contrast, Bennis and Naunus (1985) viewed leadership as the more comprehensive concept of the two, and moreover, presented leadership as the preferred alternative to management. Others believe that leadership and management are complimentary skill sets that are both necessary for executive success. A Leader-Manager is a description on those who possess both leadership and managerial skills, as some claimed. Hitt(1988) noted that an individual who is visionary is the Leader, while the one who is capable of implementing the vision is the manager. The current literature still shows distinctions in the definition of the two terms. Textbooks of management generally define management as a series of activities that are performed for the good of an organization, like Griffin (2002). On the other hand, leadership definitions tend to focus on interpersonal relationships that exist to focus on interpersonal relationships that exist between the leader and follower, or followers, like Hughes et al. (2002). Thus, all this variety in perspectives leads to the fact the controversy of whether leadership and management skills are distinct interpersonally or whether they can coexist intrapersonal as not yet been resolved. Daft (2003) however, gives a very broad statement that a person can be a manager, a leader, both or neither. This statement provides a framework for addressing the controversy concerning management and leadership, as it encompasses al the positions discussed above.

Originally, was considered from the perspective of the general manager of a business and it specifically points the tasks needed to ensure the success of the business. These tasks were classified into five broad categories namely planning, organizing, command, coordination and control with each of them comprising a host of activities (Fayol, 1916). These tasks were considered to be primary tasks, alongside with communication, motivation and decision making as a secondary management tasks. The terms manager and leader were used to be used interchangeably at the time, denoting the person with the ultimate responsibility for performance of the firm. Later on, responsibilities of command and coordination were collapsed into leadership, which was still treated as primary tasks of general management. Today these task are still deemed to constitute management. According to Armandi et al. (2003), Zaleznik, 1977 and Burns (1978), management is portrayed as uninspiring, and tactical by nature, and cannot guarantee the success of the business. As such, it is supposed that leadership be favored at the expense of management (purgeon and Cragg, 207). A number of authors support the differentiation between management and leadership, although the basis of this differentiation is not clear (Ulrich et al., 1999).

Content Analysis, an attempt to realize the boundaries of Leadership and Management After undergoing a content review of management and leadership literature, certain themes relating the leadership and management tasks emerged. The content review is a powerful knowledge development tool as it enables knowledge to be accumulated that goes beyond merely evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the existing knowledge to create a whole new and more informative undersign of the phenomenon studied. These task that resulted from the content review were as follow. Task that were both overlapping in management and leadership were assuming responsibility for the survival and growth of the business, anticipating the future, setting directions, including vision, missions, goals and strategies, communicating directions, mobilizing employees, determining priorities, understanding the environment(both macro and micro),empowering employees, considering the emotions of the staff, setting a competitive arena to compete and determining what constitutes customer value, and some other tasks.

While some tasks were found to lie exclusively in the boundaries of management. These tasks revolve around Determining organizational performance in terms of ability, motivation and opportunity, considering the customers view/value obtained, establishing needs, gathering and evaluating information, and using them. We see that while most of the tasks are shared by both leadership and management, Management has distinct tasks that revolve exclusively within its boundaries, that were not found to be attributed to management, while leadership has no distinct tasks that are exclusively within its boundaries. This observation raises the question of whether leadership is needed as a separate and exalted concept in relation to management. Given these observations, it appears that management is more comprehensive by nature than leadership. Leadership as found remains without a distinct separate body. Therefore, the terms Leadership and Management still appear to be one and the same. The information presented so far shows that nothing has much changed since the origins and first records of management and leadership However, although tasks of both are required for executive success; a point of relevance is if it was true that some authors (Kotter, 2001, Zaleznik, 1977) view management at lower levels, then leadership would imply top management view. This may explain the difference between management and leadership in that the different hierarchal levels require different tasks/responsibilities /roles.