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Christel Tabb
Laura La Flair
RH101
Argumentative Essay: Leadership versus Management
Continually there is controversy about the difference between leadership and
management. In everyday conversation, many people use the words leadership and management
synonymously, as if these two things must be interchangeable, but they are not. Many people
believe that management and leadership overlap, however, not all managers exercise leadership
and not all leaders manage. Therefore, if an individual is in a management role should they be
considered a leader and is there a considerable difference between leadership and management.
Webster’s dictionary defines management as the act or manner of managing; handling,
direction or control, while leadership is defined as a person that directs or guides a group. It is
often assumed that anyone in a management position is a leader, however, according to
Lunenburg (1) leadership can be performed by people who are not in management positions. A
leader can be an individual that will support an organization that they believe in and promote
change and fluidity within that organization. A leader’s job is to inspire and motivate. To take an
organization into the future by finding opportunities and successfully exploiting those
opportunities. “Leadership is about vision, about people buying in. Managers count value while
leaders create value about empowerment and, most of all, about producing useful change.”
(Kotter, “Management Is (Still) Not Leadership”) In fact, it is not about attributes but about
attitude and behavior. In the ever changing business world, leadership is increasingly needed
from more and more people, no matter where they are in the organizational hierarchy. According
to Kotter (“Management Is (Still) Not Leadership”), the notion that a few extraordinary people
at the top can provide all the leadership needed today is ridiculous, and a recipe for failure. The
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leadership process involves developing a vision for the organization, aligning individuals with
that vision through communication, and motivating people to act through empowerment and
through basic need of fulfillment. Above all the leadership process can create uncertainty and
change in an organization.
A manager’s job is to plan, organize, budget, coordinate and problem-solve, not to visual-
ize what has to be done to take the organization into the future. “Management is efficiency in
climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the
right wall.” (Covey, 101) For example, if the goal is to improve performance of an organization
by twenty-five percent within the next year, a manger will accomplish this goal by developing a
