Saturday 3 September 2011

Leader does the things right and Manager does the right things. Bennis. Comment


Rahul Says,


William Bennis, a pioneer in the field of Leadership studies, in his 1989 book “On Becoming a Leader,”, have suitably made a statement about the qualities of a leader and manager - ‘leader does the things right and manager does the right things’. He elucidated the various behavioural aspects of leader and manager in an organisation particularly or in any situation as whole. Leadership is the act of inspiring and gaining willing followers for a course of action, whereas, Management is the act of aligning resources by established means for established goals. Managers influence others to do known things right.

Leadership is not a hereditary nor it is conferred it is an inborn talent exhibited involuntarily when the situation demands; it is not about command nor authorising but it is more about understanding gravity of the situation then acting tactfully. Therefore, a leader can be seen as embodiment of virtues, a beacon light, and a path bearer who with his art of emotional intelligence and rhetoric skills can influence. He has the capacity to create a vision and draw other people to enrol in his vision and guide them to translate that vision into an action by creating trust, inspiring, empowering and motivating them. He is the fountainhead of innovation and initiating of novel ideas and nonetheless he also strives for capacity building of his fellows by broadening their horizons of thinking. An effective leader frequently probes for fetching information from all sources and one major source for leader is knowledge of the failures and mistakes that are being made by others. Hence, a leader does the things in a way that are mostly acceptable.

On the other hand, Manager is someone who was given their authority by the nature of their role. They ensure work gets done in right way; focus on day to day tasks, and manage the activities of others. Manager is worried about efficiency. Managers’ focuses on tactical activities and often times have a more directive and controlling approach. Manager receives their authority based on their role, hence a manager is a controlling lever in a machine, nonetheless a prime lever; his functions are limited and are continuously checked by various hierarchical clogs. He is not given any unconditional power and is application of aptitude are limited and bounded within his functional range. A manager is a facilitator too in a broader perspective. Therefore, management is about systems, controls, procedures, policies, and structure.  Hence, a manager does the things that are right (either in the eyes of organisation or himself) irrespective of its consequences.

Having said all, this traditional definition of leadership doesn’t look charming in changing times. The explanation about the leader "does the right thing" definition will identify a leader only after the fact, once history has shown that their choices were right and led to success. Limiting ourselves to this definition would mean you could never observe leadership as it happens but only in hindsight, a retrospective view that offers little guidance for someone seeking what to do as a leader now. Hence in dynamic times, perspective of Bennis about leadership and management may not suitably fit as the roles are in box and cox transformation.



Siddu Says,

Leadership is very important and much needed for every organization to reach its common goals and objectives. Leadership has thus , been defined as  “ the activity of persuading of people to cooperate  in achievement of a common objective “  Terry defines it as “ the influencing of people to strive willingly for mutual objectives.  According to Bernard “leadership refers to the quality of the behavior of individuals, whereby they guide people in the activities in organized effort. In simple leader ship depends upon three things 1) The Individuals 2) The followers and the situation.

Leader is considered as the captain of the ship. He influences the followers and gives instructions and coordinates them to reach the destination. According to gullet ‘ the terms leader and manager are interchangeable ‘ but the leader influences the group and the manager controls with authority. Abramson clearly stated that leadership will have vision, communication, hard work and the manager will have the mission, communication, and control towards the employees in attaining the organizational objectives.

Mangers do the things in a formalistic way. They are not influencing the others but they completed the tasks, which he gets from the top management. Managers always supervise the workers and compel them to reach the given task by the top mgmt. Managers always tries to complete the task rightly without any deviation.

Leaders always try to influence the others and he creates a vision among the followers and he shows the right path to reach the goal. A leader will have futuristic view and far seeing of the consequences. Leader will always have a vision but a manager will have a mission and manager accept the status quo but leader will not accept the status quo. Managers always administer and leader tries to do the things innovatively. Managers’ focuses on system and structure of the organization and a leader always focus on people, he relies on control and leader relies on trust of the followers, through this we can say that manager does things rightly, where as the leader does right things.

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