Carter Calhoun

LEAD 581: Assignment 1

carter@c3co.org

An Analysis of Leadership and Management Roles

Introduction
Effective management and inspirational leadership go hand in hand, however, they

can, and often do, stand apart. This analysis provides clear distinctions between

leadership and management in terms of roles, characteristics, and methods, as informed

from the pedagogical literature and personal experience. Throughout the analysis, I have

supplemented my personally held axioms in order to distinguish the roles of management

and leadership as complimentary but distinct ideas. Although these axioms are

inherently subjective, they are the unspoken laws that guide my actions in practical

experience. This analysis focuses on the roles of leadership and management in the

process of organizational change. In a change process, these roles become intertwined,

and as such it is a fitting practical context for analysis.

General distinctions between leadership and management roles

Organizational roles

Leadership is a skill and behavior that affects people, whereas management is an

action or process that affects systems. Leadership is important for managers as well as

members of small, self-directed teams. In my opinion, the Blacksacademy text hits the

nail on the head in stating, “managers have legitimate or positional power as a result of

their post. However, for leaders the source of their ability to influence others comes from

their expertise or from their personality. It is possible to be a leader without being a

manager, and possible to be a manager with no leadership skills. On the other hand, the
 Carter Calhoun
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best managers are also leaders.” (p.5, 2005b).

Structural roles

Leadership is scale-free, cross-departmental, and is not confined in an org chart or

hierarchy. On the other hand, management is structurally-defined, role-based, and

mandated with the function to carry out specific tasks rationally and methodically.

Management must be implemented with a precise plan and strategy for desired outcomes,

because people don’t want to be over-managed or under-managed, and organizations can

seldom afford to be mismanaged. Leadership can inspire, affirm, and strengthen the

actions of any person, regardless of professional position.

Social and Political roles

Leadership can be emotionally charged, driven by gut feelings, and appealing to a

person’s sense of self. Leadership inspires people and compels them to act. On the other

hand, management is primarily objective, fact-based, and inconsequential as to the ‘gut-

level’ feeling. Even though decisions play a significant role, the bottom line becomes a

rational and systematic one. Management is the structure-bound, rational framework, and

leadership is the skill that supports the framework. Management is about delegating roles

and responsibilities into systems and procedures, and leadership is needed to inspire

people to excel in these roles (Blackacademy, 2005a).

From this perspective, it is clear that management and leadership are quite distinct

concepts. That being said, the concepts are highly integrated in most practical

applications, especially in the application of management practice, effecting

organizational change, and inspiring and motivating individuals. Organizational change

 Carter Calhoun
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involves each of these applications, and serves as an interesting context for closer

analysis of these roles.

The leader’s role in navigating organizational change

In times of organizational change, the role of leadership is paramount. In examining

the leader’s role and behavior in the change process, research by Higgs and Rowland

identifies five broad areas of leadership competency associated with successful change

implementation, these include:

1. Engaging others in recognizing the need for change;

2. Ensuring that the change is based on depth of understanding of the issues and

supported with a consistent set of tools and processes;

3. Engaging others in the whole change process and building commitment;

4. Developing effective plans and ensuring good monitoring and review practices are

developed; and

5. Ensuring that people are challenged to find their own answers and that they are

supported in doing this (Higgs and Rowland, 2000; 2005; 2011).

Leaders often make arbitrations between complex alternatives, this is especially ture

during change. In many cases, there will be no singular ‘right’ or ‘easy’ answer. As

such, it is common for leaders make decisions that stir opposition and alienate people.

Even though constituents may wholly disagree with a leader’s decision, the leader’s

responsibility to inspire and motivate is no less relevant, only more challenging. Leaders
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must be intuitive and aspire to appease people’s interests and desires. Individual

discontentment, if gone unchecked, will challenge the leader’s position and erode the

leader’s credibility and efficacy. Effective leadership is complicated, to say the least,

however it requires even greater effort to be fair, inclusive, participatory, democratic, and

collaborative while also being effective, reaching organizational goals, and guiding

people through transition.

An interesting fact of leadership is that it is highly-context-sensitive, and leaders are

only relevant as long as they can inspire action and motivate their constituents. Leaders

utilize any mixture of skills to inspire and motivate people, and each leader perfects a

unique style. An individual may excel in a particular leadership position only to find

that, as circumstances change, the skills relevant to one circumstance may be ineffectual,

even detrimental, in another circumstance. Therefore, the leader’s capacity is owed to the

ability to adapt to changing conditions with appropriate skills.

That being said, particular skills are relevant to a broad set of circumstances. In my

opinion, some of the most useful skills include stirring sentiment, building consensus,

being comfortable in the limelight, making mistakes gracefully, being resolute even

against better judgment, and effusing popular virtues and values. Generally-speaking,

commonly effective traits include determination, clarity of vision and purpose,

communication skills, quick and accurate response to change, recognizing strengths of

team members, and generally being extroverted.

The manager’s role in navigating organizational change

Whereas leadership can focus on relational and intrapersonal skills, management is
 Carter Calhoun
LEAD 581: Assignment 1
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foremost structured and practically focused in processes, tools and methods. Leaders are

often tasked to make difficult decisions, however managers are tasked with the dubious

distinction to implement those decisions. Management is rooted in formalized authority

and must account for inevitable ‘push-back’ from those being managed. Although

members within an organization may disagree with management style and decisions, this

does not implicitly threaten the manager’s authority, nor does it necessarily imply that the

management style is ineffective. By nature, effective managers are accustomed to

weathering change and as such tend to have a more enduring tenure than leaders.

Tools and methods to navigate organizational change

Effective organizational change demands leadership and management to synergize in

a near perfect symphony. In recent months, I have become more familiar with a few tools

that incorporate both leadership and management roles, including the competing values

framework, strategic planning, and the force field analysis. These methods require clear

interplay between the responsibilities of leadership and management, and as such are

particularly relevant in this analysis.

The competing values framework identifies organizational roles within four

‘quadrants’: control, compete, collaborate, and create (Quinn et, al, 2010). Fanning out

from these quadrants are eight general ‘roles’ that define the roles of organizational

members. This framework would be used in a fashion similar to a skills audit or

personality typing, all of which are involved in making assessments of the human

resource capital in an organization. Leaders will use this information to inspire

motivation and recognize a person’s individual strengths, managers will use this

information to place individuals in the proper roles and support those roles effectively.
 Carter Calhoun
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Furthermore, this framework can be used to guide personal skills development, and

the most effective strategy differs depending upon the organizational role. One

development strategy that may suit managers involves building skills in weak quadrants

to become more balanced and comprehensive. In other words, “To be effective in the

long run, managers must engage in a variety of types of behaviors” (Quinn et, al, 2010, p.

15). For leaders, an effective development strategy may include specializing efforts

towards building existing strengths, and supplementing personal weaknesses by

identifying those strengths in other members of the organization.

Strategic planning is particularly effective to get leaders, managers, and staff ‘on the

same page’ as well as build consistency between organizational structure, mission, and

activities. Strategic planning begins with a situation analysis (also known as an

assessment or environmental scan), which is a process that establishes the scope of the

plan, outlines the planning activities, and identifies the roles of organizational members

during planning these activities (European Commission, 2004, p.60). An assessment is

best suited as a task for management, as it is process intensive.

This assessment sets the stage for leaders to guide members in a participatory,

collaborative exposition into options and objectives for organizational growth.

Leaders will ensure the assessment process inspires participation, builds consensus,

and formulates clear goals that members embrace with optimism.

The leader’s role in this process is to facilitate the group and sustain collaborative

engagement during the planning phase and into the implementation phase.
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Management of the process involves reviewing all procedures and departments and

align them systemically to achieve the desired outcome with specific objectives, clear

activities, and a relevant monitoring and evaluation plan. Both management and

leadership must act with synergy to subsequently assist individuals in adopting new

activities and objectives.

Kurt Lewin’s force field analysis is a tremendously useful for building collaboration

between organizational leaders and preparing an organization for change. The force

field analysis can expose internal divisions, identify unseen growth opportunities and

mitigate potential obstacles. Most notable about this approach, in my opinion, is the

emphasis on managing transition. As Bridges describes, “Change is situational: the

reduction in the work force, the shift in the strategy, and the switch in reporting

relationships are all “changes.” Transition, on the other hand, is a three- phase

psychological reorientation process that people go through when they are coming to

terms with change.” (p.2). Likewise, Lewin’s force field analysis is a three-step process

of unfreezing, moving, and re-freezing. The roles of the leader and manager are distinct

in purpose and complimentary to one another, much as the same way in strategic

planning.

Integrating leadership and management into practice

In my personal application of leadership and management practice, I balance familiar

methods with the need to implement new strategies and match the appropriate contexts.

In addition to the aforementioned tools and methods, each of which I have implemented

with successful results, there are several pivotal leadership and management philosophies

that I have found to be effective. Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is
 Carter Calhoun
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carter@c3co.org
an excellent realistic and inspired personal leadership framework, which I find also very

useful for project management and people management (1990). Among other valuable

insights, 7 Habits explains the highest paradigm of an effective person, interdependence.

Interdependence is a leadership principle that also supports the role of management to

facilitate the intrapersonal development of coworkers. As Covey writes about leadership,

“While you manage or control things, you must lead people.” (Covey, 2005, p. 5).

Gerber’s E-Myth philosophy has also guided my development as President of an

organization. A basic premise of the E-Myth is that entrepreneur’s serve three distinct

roles: the technician is the ‘doer’ who has mastery of the product and service, the

manager organizes processes and ensures coordination and service delivery, and the

entrepreneur is the visionary who sets the course and motivates the members of the

organization. Leaders must be mindful of these disparate roles, be particularly attentive

to the role of the entrepreneur, and shift their mindsets accordingly to embrace the skills

that are most needed for organizational growth (1995).

More recently, through my education as a community development practitioner, I

have been exposed to the precepts of servant leadership. Although, in itself, servant

leadership is not management, its implications for management are profound. Typically,

organizational activities and processes are determined by hierarchical structure. In a

servant leadership context, members of an organization are empowered to impact and

perfect these activities and processes. Servant leadership requires management structures

and processes to be malleable in order to support this style of organizational culture and

behavior. The potential benefits of this approach are substantial, and it requires

exceptional coordination between management and leadership style.

 Carter Calhoun
LEAD 581: Assignment 1
carter@c3co.org
Although the connections between leadership and management are complex and

worthy of consideration, I find it amusing that the relationship can just as accurately be

summed up in one sentence. A personal acquaintance of mine has the distinction of

educating executives in his role as Instructor for the Dale Carnegie training seminars. I

asked him to comment on this complex leader-manager relationship from his experience,

to which he grinned and coolly replied, “It’s really simple: leadership is people-oriented,

management is process-oriented”. And thus, a final adage which speaks volumes: “It is

easier said than done!”.

Word count:

References

Blacksacademy. (2005a). Management structures and organizations. Retrieved from

http://www.blacksacademy.net/content/3655.html

Blacksacademy. (2005b). Leadership and management styles. Retrieved from

http://www.blacksacademy.net/content/3641.html

Bridges, W. (2006). Getting them through the wilderness: A leader's guide to transition.
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Covey, S. (1990). 7 habits of highly effective people: powerful lessons in personal

change. Free Press. ISBN-13: 978-0671663988

Covey, S. (December 2006). Servant leadership use your voice to serve others.

Leadership Excellence. Volume 23, Issue 12

Gerber, M. (1995). The e-myth revisited: Why most small businesses don’t work and

what to do about it. New York, NY. Harper Collins

Higgs, M. J., & Rowland, D. (2000). Building change leadership capability: The quest for

change competence. Journal of Change Management, 1, 116-130.

Higgs, M. J., & Rowland, D. (2005). All changes great and small: Exploring approaches

to change and its leadership. Journal of Change Management, 5, 121-151.

Higgs, M. J., & Rowland, D. (2011). What does it take to implement change

successfully? A study of the behaviors of successful change leaders. Journal of

Applied Behavioral Science, 47, 309.

Lewin, K. (1939). Field theory and experiment in social psychology: Concepts and

methods. American Journal of Sociology 44 [6], pps. 868-896. Chicago, IL:

University of Chicago Press.

Lewin, K. (1951). Field theory in social science; selected theoretical papers. Cartwright,

D. (ed.). New York, NY: Harper & Row.

European Commission. (2004). Project Cycle Management Guidelines Brussels:

EuropeAid Cooperation Office. Retrieved from

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http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/multimedia/publications/documents/tools/europeaid_ad

m_pcm_guidelines_2004_en.pdf

Quinn, R. E., Faerman, S. R., Thompson, M. P., McGrath, M., and Clair, L. S. S. (2010).

Becoming a Master Manager: A Competing Values Approach (5th ed.). Hoboken,

New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.