Leadership Vs Management Essay

Student name: Andrejs Zvonarjovs
Student number: 10246699
Deadline date: 21st February 2012
THE UNIVERSITY OF PLYMOUTH

   

BSc (Hons) Leadership
Module code: HTM 329
Module Leader: Richard Parkman

Student name: Andrejs Zvonarjovs
Student number: 10246699
Deadline date: 21st February 2012
THE UNIVERSITY OF PLYMOUTH

   

BSc (Hons) Leadership
Module code: HTM 329
Module Leader: Richard Parkman

Leadership versus Management

Introduction

There is, has and probably always will be a debate about the differences and overlaps of leadership and management. Leadership and management are both important, but they seek to have different concerns. Kurt Lewin (1936) has found that “Every organization structures itself to accomplish its goals in a way that is in tune with or responsive to its environment.” Once the efficiency of the organization is established, people are simply maintaining the system, assuming that the environment will stay the same. Management, then, is the main focus because it keeps the organization going well with little change. But the thing is: the environment for any organization is always changing, especially in events industry. There are always shifts in consumer tastes, social attitudes, society’s culture, technology, historic events, and so on. The world is not static as we assume. Organizations tend not to spot these changes quickly, often because of a "management orientation" which is focused more on "looking in" instead of "looking out". Over time, the organization can become less and less in tune with or responsive to its environment, creating more and more management problems. Times like this require organizations to think more in terms of leadership. But what is actually leadership means to us, why it is a complex process, and how it is different from management are the questions that we address in this essay.
Differences and similarities

First, to compare these two concepts we need to define them....