Manager And Leader Essay

Serious political and economical changes, which we experienced during the last 10 years, influenced not only psychology of a man, but basic tendencies of development in economical system as well. As a result of those changes, modern educational system must prepare managers, who will be effective in any enterprise. But the good manager should be a good leader, shouldn’t he? Is it really a big difference to be a manager and to be a leader? First of all, ‘manager’ is a person, who has legal power and usually regulates sphere of business relations, whereas ‘leader’ more often is informal person, who is the most influential individual in the sphere of emotional relations inside group. Leader can be the manager, but not always. A good manager should be a good leader (Stever Robbins, p.1). To be a manager, you need to have special skills, abilities and qualities. When you are a manager, you aren’t only a person, receiving tasks but you are a person, who should influence separate people and groups of people as well, stimulating them to work to achieve definite aim. He should act effectively, he should be a leader. Still, leader is a member of some group, who possesses the most valuable potential, which gives to him leading position in this group. First of all effective manager must show his qualities of leader. When manager becomes a leader, he executes his managerial functions (planning, organization, motivation, control, etc) through the prism of informal leader. Leadership is the most significant component of manager’s activity, which relates to ability to motivate and influence behavior of some definite workers and working team as a whole. Skills of communication and personal qualities of manager, corresponding to external and internal demands of group, can be the instruments of such influence. Being a manager means using more formal way of organizing people, whereas being a leader means having more emotional approach of influence (‘The Difference’, p.1). When manager gives orders, people obey to him (because he has legal authority), whereas leader in the group unites people (they follow him or his ideas by their own will and choice). Usually people are more loyal to leader, because he is more emotional. Works Cited: 1. The Difference Between Management And Leadership [online] http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~gerard/MENG/ME96/Documents/Intro/leader.html 2. Stever Robbins, The Difference Between Managing and Leading. Understanding people will help you make the shift from managing to leading a business. November 18, 2002 [online] http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/0,4621,304743,00.html