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The difference between being a manager and a leader can seem complex. The term leader provokes thoughts of military officers or NCOs in the front of their men "leading" them into combat. When one thinks of a manager, one thinks of a business or managing "assets". These two terms are becoming more fused as businesses recognize the need to employ leadership skills in order to more effectively manage personnel.
Management is a term that encompasses many of the same functions of leadership. However, management, by its definition, has to do more with organization and effective use of assets and personnel. Webster's Dictionary defines management as: the "judicious use of means to accomplish an end" (among other things). One can manage equipment, money or personnel. When people are interjected into the process, management really becomes leadership. Management, then, is a much broader term than is leadership. According to the Project Management Institute (as cited in Fay, 2007), the key functions of management are scope, quality, time, risk, human resources, procurement and communications and information. These skills can be taught. Since corporations now recognize the need to "fuse" management and leadership, many have established training courses to train young managers and leaders.
Leadership, on the other hand, is an attitude that one is born with or picks up along the way from having good leaders as mentors. This makes leadership a bit more difficult to define. It is more than just managing assets. The word leader implies that there are followers. A leader must then inspire and motivate people to do whatever it is that must be done for the greater good of the organization (Army FM 6-22, 2006). The Army defines leadership as: "the process of influencing people by providing purpose, direction, and motivation while operating to accomplish the mission and improving the organization" (p. 1-2). Further, leaders must have vision, conviction, drive and ambition. Leaders must do more than just move pieces around a chessboard. They have to get the most out of the human element which requires more effort and involvement. A leader needs to have values such as honor, duty and self sacrifice and feel respect and compassion for others. They have to understand the jobs of those who work for them. They have to know how far to push and when to use positive and negative reinforcement and how much. A good leader cares about those that work for him, but does not lose sight of the "big" picture (corporate or otherwise).
One can be an effective leader of men, and be a very poor manager. Conversely, one can be a great manager and a very poor leader. There are far fewer leaders in this world than there are managers. As Fay states in his article, managing has a larger impact on the overall success of the organizations profitability (p. 2). Managing is, then, the larger picture. Being a successful leader as a manager gets the organization the biggest bang for the buck.
John C Haywood is a soon to be retired Army Special Forces Senior Warrant Officer. He has travelled and worked extensively in Latin America over the course of his lengthy military career. He has eight, cumulative years ranging from El Salvador to Argentina with five years in Colombia alone. He moved to Colombia in 2002 to be an advisor to a Colombian Counter Narcotics Joint Task Force where he lived for fifteen months. He then moved to Bogotá where he worked as the Action Officer and program manager for US Southern Command's Planning Assistance Training Team (PATT), becoming the senior tactical advisor and operations officer for the program. He returned to the states in 2006 where he is employed as a Doctrine Writer for the US Army John F Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School. He retires from the Army this summer after twenty six years of service.
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