Leadership Versus Management: What's the Difference?

Journal for Quality and Participation, The, Summer 2006 by Kotterman, James

Personal perspectives to stimulate thinking, change,...and even controversy

Is there a real difference between leadership and management, or are they just different styles?

Whereas leaders are seen as charismatic and often are admired and held in high esteem, managers frequently are thought of as the organization's taskmasters with a whip in one hand and a bullhorn for screaming out orders in the other hand. Is there really a difference between these two terms, or are the perceived differences simply a matter of style? Even if there is a difference, does that difference truly affect the day-to-day workplace?

Is it important to differentiate between leadership and management? Many people think it is, as evidenced by academic debates and Internet searches. Virtually all organizations, including large corporations, military branches, government agencies, and academia, as well as MBA programs, organizational development consultants, industrial psychologists, leadership theorists, and human resources professionals are concerned about the difference and believe it is important. This article discusses research on how leadership and management differ, how they are the same, and why those differences and similarities are important in the workplace.

Measurement Framework

Conceptualizing and defining leadership and management have always been difficult. The two terms often are used interchangeably in the workplace, creating confusion. Many leadership theorists have noted that there are nearly as many definitions for leadership as attempts to characterize it (Bass, 1990; Kotter, 1990, 1999; Terry, 1993; Zaleznik, 1998).

In order to make useful comparisons, a reliable measurement system is necessary. In this case, which was associated with a dissertation program, the original intention was to correlate workplace leadership performance with leaders' personality traits. It quickly became apparent that research on leadership and management performance was fraught with problems. Ultimately, it was determined that measurement should be in terms of effectiveness, as rated by subordinates. This decision was based on historical empirical research that indicated subordinates often were identified as the determinant success factor in leadership and management success (Bass, 1990; Eden and Leviatan, 1975; Gordon and Yukl, 2004; Yukl, 1989; Zaccaro and Horn, 2003), so this measurement approach seemed reasonable.

Historical Perspective

Management is a fairly new phenomenon. The emergence of large, complex organizations in the last century generated the need for a system to regulate work and deal with authority and control issues. This resulted in the modern workplace manager who was expected to reduce the internal chaos of those more complicated organizations. Managers brought order and consistency to the multitude of workplace processes. Since that time, the duties of workplace management and its associated processes have been researched, refined, and improved significantly in the past century (Kotter, 1990, 1995).

On the other hand, leadership is one of the world's oldest preoccupations, serving as both a hot topic and an important driver of innovation for thousands of years (Bass, 1990). Effective leadership remains one of the most misunderstood human phenomenons and comprises one of the most fundamental aspects of the human condition (Wren, 1995).

Why do the experts believe it is important to differentiate between leadership and management? Fundamentally, if you can't define leadership or management, you can't measure, test, make assessments, or consistently hire or promote for them. Yet, they are both important to a successful workplace. The ongoing debate as to whether or not a clear distinction exists between leadership and management generally remains unresolved (Gardner, 1990; Gordon and Yukl, 2004).

Research Barriers

Theories of workplace leadership and management continue to emerge and be refined, but lack of a parsimonious taxonomy and a unifying theory of leadership have made progress slow and fraught with conflicting empirical results (Gordon and Yukl, 2004; Humphreys and Einstein, 2004; Yukl, Gordon, and Tabor, 2002). Transformational leadership, as originally theorized by James McGregor Burns (Bass, 1990; Burns, 1978/1995) and later researched by Bass (1990), has become increasingly popular; however, it has not achieved the status of a unified leadership theory (Stone, Russell, and Patterson, 2004). When leadership is researched, therefore, the definition or construct theory used to define its characteristics varies significantly for each study and can make a huge difference in the results. Fortunately, however, some commonality about the aggregate functions of leadership and management are beginning to emerge.

Another barrier in leadership and management research is the fundamental disparities between academic research and empirical research. Academic research, which is also called basic, fundamental, or pure research, focuses on the advancement of knowledge and the theoretical understanding of the relations among variables. It attempts to structure and identify new problems or develop new solutions to problems. Empirical or applied research, however, bases its findings on direct or indirect observation as its test of reality, evaluating the feasibility of an existing solution to a problem (Wikpedia, 2006).