MGTP102 Management Principles - Managers are not Leaders

The argumentative essay must agree or disagree with one of the statements below:

1. Pay acts as a universal motivator as it meets all needs.

OR

2. Given the pace of change strategic planning is a waste of time.

OR

3. All managers do not need to be leaders.

Answer

Managers do not Need to be Leaders

The aim of this essay is to discuss the operations and roles of the managers and the leaders in an organization. It is often believed that the managers are not leaders and they do not need to be one as the responsibilities of these two segments are completely different from one another. The managers are responsible for coordination, planning and organizing all the tasks as well as activities of the companies. Moreover, they are more attached with all the employees of the firms and more visibility among the stakeholders but they also need to have some leadership skills at some point of time. Leading and managing are two different roles which need different skills and orientations but the managers need the soft skills for empowering and strengthening their management skills.

Thesis statement: Managers have all the responsibilities of firms with them hence need to have leadership skills necessarily.

This essay will discuss the argument regarding the management skills and leadership skills with proper evidences and explanations. This essay will be presenting contrasting ideas so that all the aspects of management and leadership can be clearly seen and judged. Based on these arguments, managerial duties will be understood properly and skills will be developed.

Firstly, managers are most accustomed with the operation of the organizations and operate more directly than the leaders of the organizations. Ever manager has the responsibilities to carryout four most important functions like planning, organizing, leading and controlling every operations of the organization. In most of the cases, the employees of the organization follow the instructions of the managers therefore, they are responsible and answerable to their managers and not to the leader of the firm. Based on this, the managers establish the work rules, standers, processes and procedures of operations. In addition to this, the managers unlike leaders ae responsible for daily effort while reviewing all the necessary resources of the firms and anticipate the needs for making changes in the organization. To many of the scholars, the managers while operating directly with the company’s each and every segment, are responsible to execute the visions which is the main responsibility of the leader of an organization. The manager of the firm builds a strategic vision then break it into a roadmap so that the teams can effectively follow them to reach the desired destination. These managers know the exact position of the firm, where they need to go and how to reach the desired destination.

As mentioned before, the managers are closer to the employees, they can easily identify the issues in the workplace and solve them with their leadership skills. The employees tend to connect more with the managers rather than the leaders as the managers have more visibility among the employees. These managers earn trust of the employees as they always keep teams informed about the situation along with the obstacles creating barriers to the development of the firms. For example, in facing any issues in the firms which the employees need to face, the managers can easily motivate the employees more adequately and help the teams to understand their own roles in the organizational contexts. Therefore, it can be stated that the management of a firm need to possess all the necessary skill that a leader possesses for successful business.

Secondly, most of the managers tend to possess the leadership qualities or develop in themselves and they need to adequately carry out the responsibilities of leadership in the organizations that include motivation, providing information and guidance to the subordinates, communicate all the issues to the stakeholders and learn their issues also and encourage the employees for raising their productivity (Walley 2013, p. 491). The managers are also responsible to help the firm to achieve its goals. This is the reason why they apply the micromanaging method in the firms. Through this method, the managers keep a watch for the operations of the teams and their productivity as well as creativity. Thus, they get each and every information of the workplace, starting from the ground level to the senior layers. Thus, they can focus on the individual strength and weaknesses. The leaders are responsible to bring changes in the organization through innovation but if the organization is not ready understand and implement the innovation process, then this strategy fails dreadfully (Jacobs, van Witteloostuijn and Christe-Zeyse 2013, p. 785).  The managers while empowering and motivating employees identify exact way to utilize their strengths so that they can utilize the workforce more intensely. They actually provide the leaders all the information of the weaknesses and strength of the employees so that the leaders apply their charisma or innovative skills on the workforce.

The managers are also responsible to maintain proper structure in the organizations and hire the most fitting employee by judging their applicability in the development of the organization. They ensure that the team performance and productivity are properly maintained for this reason they provide all the necessary information to the subordinates in one hand and also guide them to reach the organizational goals (Walley 2013, p. 490). For example, when the employees need any information or resources to increase their productivity or need any technological change in the organization they directly visit to the managers but not to their leaders. They need leadership qualities in their managers who will be reachable or accessible to them in one hand and guide them to overcome any type of issues in the organization.

Thirdly, it is common thought that the leaders are not born but developed and the managers of most of the organization do to adopt these skills but develop in themselves through proper trainings. The managers of the organization possess more knowledge that any of the employees of the organization. They keep on enhancing their knowledge through research about the operations of the firms so that the companies can develop competencies and skills needed for success. The behavioral demand of the leadership role can be easily developed by the managers if they are willing to lead their subordinates. They have knowledge about proper tools as well as techniques in maintaining position of the firm in the entire industry. The managers are more knowledgeable about the information of the competitors which the leaders do not have hence know all the scopes for development of the firms. Most of the managers perceive the stage of growth of the firms if they have a long tern connection with the firms. They possess experience about the development scopes in flourishing in the industry. This is the reason why the managers have wisdom and prudence more intense than those of the leaders. Hence, they make more apt leaders matching the expectation of the companies and providing in all-inclusive insight for change of the process of the companies (Kotter and Schlesinger 1989, p. 301).

The current context of business supports the fact that the companies operating in the global business need to have proper knowledge about the cross-cultural management. In this regard also, the managers prove them to be more expert than the leaders. They need to have in depth knowledge about the cultural dimensions of the market where the organization is entering and doing business. The leadership skills to understand the diversity in the workplace and utilize them properly have been the factors for change in attitude and the organizational culture of the firms (Gorran 2013, p. 17). Management therefore, as attached with all types of department in the company need to possess proper communication and negotiation skills to respect the cultural diversity in the firms. For example, the managers mitigate all the conflicts regarding difference of culture among the local employees and the expatriates through their leadership skills hence they need to be an apt leader to manage and overcome all the challenges.

The contrasting ideas state some very important aspects of the management and leadership roles. The most important aspect that the contrasting idea reveals is innovation skills of the leaders which cannot be adopted by the managers of the organizations. The leader is responsible to bring changes in the organization therefore, implementing innovation in this respect is essential for the leaders. The leaders always foresee the future hence develop new techniques and ideas either for strategize the change or to develop skills to gain competitive advantages in the highly competitive market. The mangers on the other hand do not have time or skills to bring changes in the organization through invention or innovation. They only maintain what is already established in the company (Lundin and Söderholm 2013, p. 593). Secondly, the leaders are responsible to judge all the aspects of the operation of the firms and face difficulties as well as challenges to support and cover the associates. They endure the failure of every types and find the positive aspect so that the organization can learn from the challenges. They analyze and assess the elements and reasons of failure so that all the necessary tools can be implemented to avoid such problems against managers on the contrary do not assess and analyze the factors of failure like the leaders but emphasis on questioning the process and times of failure in order to ensure whether the plans are properly executed. The mangers therefore accept the status quo accurately in a way the leaders keep and never attempt to change.

Thirdly, the managers need to have a formal and tangible power which the leaders do not possess. Power is given to the leaders on a temporary basis which they use to motivate the followers. The power division of the leaders and the managers clearly defines that the responsibilities of the managers are more formal hence they need to answer the subordinates but the leaders have followers who are attracted by the qualities and efficiency of their leaders (Kotter and Schlesinger 1989, p. 297). The subordinates of the managers do not have choice but abide by their demands and expectations of their managers. This is due to the fact that the managers ensure control in the organization through implementing policies and regulations of the firms strong but the leaders motivate the employees through their communicative, innovative and foresighted skills for which the employees get attracted to the leaders and do everything the leaders expect from them. This is the reason why the statement that “all managers do not need to be leaders” is perfect to be followed. The divisions of responsibilities and roles between the managers and leaders are essential so that the entities can operate in their organizations separately. The layers of power needed to be followed according to the strategies of the firms so that one set of power do not result in building barriers of the others. The innovation that the leaders initiate, managers implement them and take care of their proper execution. Therefore, not all manager needs to be leaders but focus on proper management of the resources to reach the goals of the organization.

Therefore, it can be concluded that for running the organization smoothly, the power division between the leaders and managers are not be followed and the mangers also have to be expert as the leaders of the firms. Managers possess all the knowledge of the industry in which the companies operate. They are more attached with the employees than the leaders. Most of the managers possess more or less leadership skills in order to operate successfully as well as carry out their leadership responsibilities. They motivate the employees, provide all the needed information, guide them to reach the organizational goals. They also manage the queries of the stakeholders and communicate all the issues to them. As the leaders are not born but created, the managers of most of the organization develop themselves and grow leadership skills through self-assessment and trainings. However, the leaders have some in born qualities which the managers can never imitate. Moreover, the managers have a formal and tangible power so that they can ensure the positive outcome in the companies and development all-inclusively. Hence the essay perfectly judges different perspectives of the leadership and management.

References:  

Gorran Farkas, M 2013 ‘Building and sustaining a culture of assessment: best practices for change leadership’ Reference services review, vol. 41, no.1, pp.13-31.

Jacobs, G, van Witteloostuijn, A & Christe-Zeyse, J 2013, ‘A theoretical framework of organizational change’, Journal of Organizational Change Management, vol. 26, no. 5,pp.772-792.

Kotter, J.P & Schlesinger, L.A 1989, ‘Choosing strategies for change’, In Readings in Strategic Management, pp. 294-306, Palgrave, London.

Lundin, R.A & Söderholm, A 2013, ‘Temporary organizations and end states: A theory is a child of its time and in need of reconsideration and reconstruction’ International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, vol. 6, no. 3, pp.587-594.

Walley, P 2013, Stakeholder management: the sociodynamic approach, International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, vol. 6, no. 3, pp.485-504.