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Being a manager vs. being a leader

These two concepts must be distinguished. Generally, leadership is a component of successful management which is to optimize the productivity of the organisation through planning, directing, organization and controlling. Leadership comes under the directing function. Below are the key differences between leaders and managers:

A) Perspectives: managers follow company policy while leaders follow their own intuition "Managers do things right, while leaders do the right thing."

B) Abilities: A manager has to know how to plan, direct, organize and control but a leader may not know how to plan, direct, organize and control

C) Knowledge: A manager is knowledgeable about the system of the organization and they have good technical knowledge because they have worked their way up the company. A leader can be a new to an organization and has bold, fresh, new ideas but might not have experience or wisdom.

D) Power: A manager may only have obtained his position of authority through time and loyalty given to the company, not as a result of his leadership qualities. People follow a leader on their own choice but people have to obey a manager.

E) Motivating people: The manager usually uses official and logical method to motivate people to complete tasks while the leader stirs up emotions and uses passion to motivate people so a leader can be seen to be more emotional than a manager.

F) Style: Managers use authoritarian and transactional style, meaning subordinates have to follow the orders of managers while leaders use charismatic and transformational style, meaning followers are inspired to follow their leader's wishes

G) Focus: Managers are work-focused as they are paid to oversee and delegate tasks to subordinates while leaders are people-focused, that is they are charismatic and are always good with people, successful in creating the loyalty from followers. (This doesn't mean leaders don't pay attention to tasks - in fact they are achievement-focused, moreover, they emphasize the importance of stimulating others to work towards their vision.)

H)Uncertainty avoidance: managers are more rise-averse but leaders are more risk-seeking. Hence, managers seek comfort and seek to avoid conflict where possible while leaders are comfortable with risk by finding ways others avoid and willing to break rules in order to get things done




-Loyalty: Groups are usually more loyal to a leader than a manager because the leader is responsible in taking the blame when things go wrong, celebrating group


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