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Guest post by: Gerard O'Donovan Become an Author

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The Manager and Leader



The difference between management and leadership has often been discussed. Though the two have distinct differences, each of them go together to make a cohesive whole that makes a person more effective both as a manager and as a leader. However, a person can be a leader or a manager depending on the way they motivate people, and the methods and techniques that they use in both motivating and leading their people tends to be the main difference.

Subordinates vs. Followers

When it comes to their people, managers would have subordinates and leaders would have followers. But there are some managers who have honorary titles given due to their seniority rather than a need for them to manage a team.

Leaders would have followers even when they are managers in an organization. They get followers when they choose to relinquish the often authoritarian control that managers have over subordinates and instead choose to lead and get voluntary support from their followers.

Subordinates are often given little to no choice when it comes to following instructions from their managers, on the other hand, followers get to follow their leaders voluntarily.



Transactional vs. Transformational

Due to the position of authority that is given to a manager, their subordinates often do what the manager says. This doesn’t mean that subordinates are blind robots but because their compensation relies on how well they get tasks done they often do what the manager says. Thus managers often use the transactional management style to make sure what they say gets done.

Leaders on the other hand use the transformational style in order to inspire the people following them. When one decides to become a leader, it’s often the most difficult thing to make people want to follow. It’s important that they get the feeling of wanting to follow and work towards the same goal as the leader. Leaders then use the transformational style through their innate charismatic abilities to persuade people that they’ll not only achieve the needed goals but that they’ll also be better people for having done so.



Work vs. People Focus

A manager is mostly focused on getting things done so that they’ll live up to what their company requires of them. Often managers are given a certain amount of time and resources to accomplish things and will need to mobilize their subordinates to get the tasks done.

Leaders are often quite good with people, often using a quiet charisma to draw people in. Though a people-person, leaders don’t necessarily have to be friends with everyone and often retain certain aloofness even while inspiring others to follow them. But even if they do focus on their people, it doesn’t mean they don’t have their eye on the goal. Leaders actually keep a very keen eye on what they need to achieve and they get it by enthusing others to work towards the same goal.

Eventually, managers need to be leaders and leaders need to be managers. Using management skills and leadership skills needs a fine balance to achieve goals. One or the other will need to be used depending on the goals and the challenge comes in determining when to be the manager and when to be the leader.

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