What is the relationship between leadership and management? However, often used interchangeably, there seems to be a distinct variance between both disciplines. The concepts of managing and leading have raised a lot of debates in the present day work place

1. Are Managers Leaders?
By Adelakun Oluwafemi, MBA Risk Management
What is the relationship between leadership and management? However, often used
interchangeably, there seems to be a distinct variance between both disciplines. The concepts
of managing have raised a lot of debates in the present day work place. Traditionally, managing
which has been the order of the day is being identified for accomplishment or getting work done
through the performance contribution of others. Management is concerned with making things
happen and keeping work on schedule, engaging in routine interactions to achieve planned
actions. There is need to have a clear understanding of what is being managed since we live in
a world of managed organisations. Largely, management is usually done through coordinating
functions of planning, organizing, directing and controlling. It is the responsibility of managers to
manage, but organisations can achieve their aims and objective only through the coordinated
efforts of their members. This involves effective management of people resource, which is a
core function of leadership.
Increasingly, in modern work organisation, people resources have become vital to success
performance in organisations because of the diversity in business. Hence, organisations cannot
afford to lose them, but need to develop strategies to retain their loyalty and commitment. The
process of enhancing this loyalty is a function of effective leadership. Generally, leadership
functions through the influence of one person’s behaviour or actions on other people. In
essence, the complexity and changing nature of business have now necessitated a shift or
move from core traditional management to effective leadership. In other words, the focus now
should be moving away from achieving organisational performance by close control of work
force and towards an environment for coaching, mentoring, support and empowerment.
Leadership today is increasingly not associated with command and control but with concept of
team work, getting along with other individuals and creating a vision which others can identify. A
leader’s responsibility is to constantly challenge the bureaucracy that smothers individual
enthusiasm and the desire to contribute positively in the best interest of the organisation.
More often than not, individuals who are saddled with the responsibility to manage a group of
people do not understand the complexities within their teams and as such tend to exhibits the
traditional nature of management. This might be owed to a multiplicity of factors including but
not limited to: lack of awareness and required skill as well as insufficient training. Majority of
“managers” see themselves as being superior to every member of the team and this often led to

2. conflict, dispute and criticism. Leaders in the new millennium will create an environment that
encourages development of skills, learning and openness so that those on their teams can
participate in the deployment of financial and human resources.
Leading versus managing
 While Leaders ensures their subordinate perform their task and duties up to standards
required by inspiration or inducement and have influence through example, persuading,
motivating and teaching, managers direct work and behaviour via authority.
 Managers do things right, Leaders do the right thing.
 Managers creates stability within the process, Leaders create the required change.
In view of the above, it can be said that leadership goes beyond management. Management
involves getting things done using the resources of the organisation, and the formal patterns
and rules within the organisation. Leadership, on the other hand, sometimes involves driving
through changes and new initiatives, which may be unpopular in some quarters.
Conclusively, in a quest for excellent and outstanding performance, leadership skills are very
vital and as such, in the today’s business environment, managers do not seems to posses those
characteristic to drive the required performance. In other words, organisations therefore need
leaders and not managers. Although, the concept of managing forms the basis for leadership,
managers are however not leaders, but leaders are managers, hence you need to be a leader
to manage effectively.