I believe they both have their place, sometimes you need to manage to just get the job done. Your overall goal would be to lead and develop leadership and foster involvement among your peers.
I agree that leadership is an important aspect of a good manager. One is not more important than the other, they complement each other.
I actually do not think one is more important than another. An organization needs good managers to accomplish day-to-day tasks and make sure things get done in a timely manner. However, an organization needs leaders to provide vision and direction for the company.
Both management skills & leadership skills are important
I agree with you summarization of the two. It is very important to have both qualities in a teaching position.
In my opinion, it is equally important to have both qualities. In order to influence a group toward accomplishing it's goals, as a leader, you must first possess the critical skills of a manager: people skills, be able to influence others, be a self-manager and be accountable at many different levels.
I also agree that the two go hand in hand with each other. Unfortunately there are some cases where people are only looking for a title only. In the end it could lead to a non-productive outcome. It is extremely important to pick the right individuals for such a job.
A leader is more important because it helps an organization improve quality and a have a focus towards the future while being in the present.
When teaching, is important to be both a manager and a leader. You have to manage the time & material being taught. You also need to manage various disruptive behaviors in the class. But students need to be motivated & lead to the acquisition of new knowledge & ways of thinking.
Anna Smith
My questions are, at what point does a manager become a leader? or can you be a manager without being a leader? can one be a great leader and a poor manager? or a great manager and a poor leader? In the daily running of an organization, it seems to me that a good manager is more important than being a leader. On the other hand, to motivate, to change direction or emphasis, it's more important to be a good leader than a manager. In organizations where a core committee makes the decisions, a good manager is going to be more important because leadership is being done at the core committee or corporate level.
A leader must also be a good manager, as both roles are necessary in order for an organization to be successful. Each requires a set of skills that enable one to be sucessful in each of the roles, but as a leader, a working knowledge of how the managers are performing, and waht the managers are doing is important to steer the vision of the organization, and in achieving the overall goals.
Give me a leader any day! I am a 28-plus year veteran of our military, and I can tell you that we spent the vast majority of our time teaching people how to develop as leaders as they reached different levels of responsibility. Managers tell us "where" to go; leaders get us there!
Good leader can always find managers for different tasks. Yet, good manager won't be able to take people through challenging times without leadership skills. However, in the time of stability managers may be very effective as long as they know the goal. I say being a leader is more important. If someone lacks leadership skills, he/she at least may try to be a good manager, helping leader to achieve the goal. Leadership is like a poetry. One must have gift for it. Yet without good managers leader my not last long. History teaches us: Great leaders were able to remain great only when they had loyal managers helping them with routine. Unfortunately, often history doesn't even save the names of those managers.
Juvenal,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts here. You bring up some interesting points. I wonder, what could someone do if they aren't as skilled in leadership characteristics?
Shannon Gormley
A manager is one who knows the art of getting work done through employees and must possess the qualities like interpersonal skills,act as resource allocator,a decison maker,a problem solver , a liaison and most importantly a figurehead or in more popular terms a leader. That means very clearly that manager is a much broader term and therefore to be an affective leader is a prerequisite to be a good manager. In fact being a leader is the tip of the iceberg called a manager. Hence all managers have to be good leaders but all good leaders may not always be good managers. Today we need approachable mangers who can get work done through people by being in close coordination with them,hence an approachable leader is one who can get followers working just because they want to do it and not for any other reason. Only then it can be called effective leadership and a manager does exactly that. I feel one definitely needs to be an effective leader to be an effective manager. Therefore I believe that it is more important to be a effective leader.
brian,
Thanks for sharing your insights. You make excellent points regarding the importance of both leadership and management for the organization.
Shannon Gormley
Well said, Brian. All of the traits that you have discussed here are characteristics that we see in many leaders, especially those that excel in their positions. Having the ability to see beyond the current situation and reframe the experience to forge ahead can certainly be attributed to the inidividual's unique perspective. What might you do to develop this skill in future leaders?
Shannon Gormley
I agree that leaders emerge through personality traits applied to their circumstances. Many people respond differently in adverse situations, leaders see the long-term take away and use this to forge ahead, or even spot stagnation when the status quo works for now but is yielding less and less benefit over time. I think transcending current surroundings, situations, and even staff to see a bigger picture is a leadership trait harder to quantify than most, and the ability to do this is often a unique individual perspective.
I think the two are equally important in different ways, and often at different times. Leadership is required to create a path forward that will be sustainable and satisfies the needs of a company. Management is the procedural necessity to achieve this. Without the micro, the macro cannot be accomplished.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts with the group, Laura. Listening to truly understand another individual is critical for many situations involving leadership and managment. Great insight.
