Nothing Enigmatic About Leadership

The debate over leadership versus management will not help organizations as this debate only produces useless stereotypes. Leadership and management are both important, but they seek to do different things. Management has the inherent implication that if the organization is doing well, little or no change is needed. However, the business environments today have become complex and sophisticated, making the organization at an ever-changing mode.

The markets constantly change in their tastes, behavior, and attitude. Technology today is different from yesterday and will surely be different from what comes tomorrow. These quick shifts all mean change.

A management-oriented organization will not spot these changes, much less act on them because it tends to comfortably look within the organization only. The leader or leaders spring from these managers, anyway. They are the ones that start to ask what more can be done and what quick responses to quickly changing times can be given. In other words, leaders are those managers who start to look outside of the organization after a long time of looking within.

Leadership is different from management, but not for the prevailing mindset in which people tend to box these definitions in. It has nothing to do with charisma or gifted personality traits. There is hardly anything enigmatic about leadership. The old view is merely a romantic rendition of the dichotomy between managers and leaders. Likewise, leaders are also not those who are the chosen ones. Again, this is a banal romanticism of the whole thing.

Leadership is also not necessarily better than management, in terms of the existence of an organization. Neither does leadership become a more desired state of things that should replace management. Leadership cannot exist in a vacuum because it is not what it can be without the able support of management. Both leadership and management are necessary components of a successful business environment and human resource organization.

The only reason why the debate has existed is because there has to be some differences to be defined. All this is for a reason, too. Without setting the differences, the organization cannot define the functions and, therefore, cannot measure the effectiveness of each. It should be noted that a leader and a manager are both members of the organization that expect upward mobility. Assessments are still necessary for the activities of hiring and promotion, as well as succession planning.

Both leader and manager are necessary in a successful workplace. Because these are high-profile positions and are, thus, coveted, the debate of leadership versus management will always remain unresolved. After all, the business environment is inherently competitive all the time.