Leadership or
Management?
Understanding the
Leader Manager
An FGI white paper
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Purpose
In 1865, James Clerk Maxwell (13 June 1831 – 5 November 1879), a Scottish mathematical
physicist, published his ground breaking work ‘A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic
Field’, which was Clerk Maxwell’s most notable achievement and formulated the classical
theory of electromagnetic radiation, bringing together for the first time electricity, magnetism
and light as manifestations of the same phenomenon.
Similarly, the purpose of this document is to allow the reader the opportunity to consider the
idea that the concepts of Leadership and Management should not be seen as two distinct
disciplines, but rather that they are both manifestations of the same phenomenon and that
there is the role of the Leader Manager.
Our task therefore, is to consider on which side of the concept we fall, and whether we are
more management focused or leadership focused. Or do we actually need to be in the middle?
How you decide to perform the role of Leader Manager is actually a reflection of your own
personal traits and the situations in which you find yourself.
In order to ponder this idea further, we need to get back to basics and understand the
characteristics of both leadership and management in order for you, the reader, to form your
own opinions.
Understanding Leadership
A definition of Leadership
The Oxford English Dictionary defines leadership as the dignity, office, or position of a leader,
especially of a political party; ability to lead; the position of a group of people leading or
influencing others within a given context; the group itself; the action or influence necessary for
the direction or organization of effort in a group undertaking.
Leadership is a vast subject with many different viewpoints and opinions. To help guide us
down the winding road of the development of leadership theory this paper aims to focus the
mind on just a few key areas in order to build a picture of leadership. We aim first to
understand some of the most widely accepted theories surrounding leadership.
2
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Leadership Theories
Trait Theory or Great Man/Woman Theory
Trait Theory is one of the earliest theories on leadership, which dates back to the mid-19th
century and Thomas Carlyle’s assertion that leaders are born and not made and that “history is
a biography of great people”. The theory is based on the idea that certain traits are inborn and
that some people are more predisposed to succeed at leadership than others. The theory
states therefore that leaders are born and not made. However Trait Theory has been largely
superseded by more modern thinking.
Situational Theory
Situational Theory began as a reaction to the Trait Theory of leadership. This theory assumes
that different situations call for different leadership characteristics. This group of theories state
that no single optimal psychographic profile of a leader exists. According to the theory, “what
an individual actually does when acting as a leader is in large part dependent upon
characteristics of the situation in which they function.” However, it wasn’t long before some
theorists started to amalgamate the trait and situational approaches.
Building on further research, academics began to normalize the descriptive models of
leadership theory, and defined three leadership styles (sometimes referred to as Behaviour
Theory) and identified which situations each style works better in.
Modern Trait Theory
Although Trait Theory has now been largely discredited, researchers have more recently
started to look at the theory again. However, the Modern Trait Theory approach considers
whether there are personality aspects that make people more likely to become successful
leaders.
This is not to say that leaders cannot be made, and leadership skills cannot be taught, but
rather that there are certain traits that mean people are more likely to seek out leadership
positions.
Shared Leadership Theory
Most traditional theories of leadership explicitly or implicitly promote the idea of the leader as
the admired hero.
The three levels of leadership model shifts away from this view. It does not reject the idea of
the heroic leader, but it does promote the idea that Shared Leadership is the only way of
leading and following and that shared leadership is more realistic to the situations we
encounter.
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Three Leadership Styles
Leadership style refers to a leader’s style of providing motivation, direction, and implementing
organizational plans. There are three main leadership styles that can be displayed by leaders in
the social, political, and business environments.
Autocratic/Authoritarian
The autocratic/authoritarian leadership style is often approved of during periods of crisis but
fails to win the “hearts and minds” of followers in day-to-day management.
Authoritarian leadership styles often follow the vision of those that are in control, and may not
necessarily be compatible with the ideas of those being led. Authoritarian leaders have a focus
on efficiency, as do other styles, such as a democratic style, but may be seen as a hindrance on
progress.
Democratic
The democratic leadership style is more appropriate in situations that require consensusbuilding.
The democratic leadership style consists of the leader sharing the decision-making abilities
with group members by promoting the interests of the group members and by practicing
social equality. This style of leadership encompasses discussion, debate and sharing of ideas
and encouragement of people to feel good about their involvement. The boundaries of
democratic participation tend to be circumscribed by the organization or the group needs and
the instrumental value of people’s attributes (skills, attitudes, etc.).
Laissez-faire
The laissez-faire leadership style is appreciated for the large degree of freedom it provides.
The laissez-faire leadership style is where all the rights and power to make decisions is fully
given to the worker. The laissez-faire style is sometimes described as the “hands off” leadership
style because the leader delegates the tasks to their followers while providing little or no
direction.
Laissez-faire is effective when:
 Followers are highly skilled, experienced, and educated;
 Followers have pride in their work and the drive to do it successfully on their own;
 Outside experts, such as staff specialists or consultants are being used.
4
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Laissez-faire is ineffective when:
 Followers feel insecure at the unavailability of a leader;
 The leader cannot or will not provide regular feedback to their followers.
The Three Levels of Leadership Model
The Three Levels of Leadership is a modern leadership model developed by James Scouller in
his book of the same name in 2011. Designed as a practical tool for developing a person’s
leadership presence, know-how and skill, it aims to summarize what leaders have to do, not
only to bring leadership to their group or organization, but also to develop themselves
technically and psychologically as leaders.
The three levels referred to in the model’s name are Public, Private and Personal leadership.
Personal Leadership
Personal leadership addresses the leader’s technical, psychological and moral development
and its impact on his or her leadership presence, skill and behaviour. It is, essentially, the key to
making the theory of the two outer behavioural levels practical
Personal leadership has three elements:
1. Technical knowledge and skill;
2. Positive attitudes towards other people; and
3. Psychological self-mastery.
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Private Leadership
Private leadership concerns the leader’s one-to-one handling of individuals. Although
leadership involves creating a sense of group unity, groups are composed of individuals and
they vary in their ambitions, confidence, experience and psychological make-up.
Public Leadership
Public leadership refers to the actions or behaviours that leaders take to influence two or more
people simultaneously – perhaps in a meeting or when addressing a large group. Public
leadership is directed towards:
1. Setting and agreeing a motivating vision or future for the group or organization to
ensure unity of purpose;
2. Creating positive peer pressure towards shared, high performance standards and an
atmosphere of trust and team spirit
3. Driving successful collective action and results.
Public leadership therefore serves the first three dimensions of leadership mentioned in the
overview section.
Understanding Management
Definition of Management
The Oxford English Dictionary defines management as the organization, supervision, or
direction; the application of skill or care in the manipulation, use, treatment, or control (of a
thing or person), or in the conduct of something.
History
The word “management” originates from the Latin term for handling or controlling a horse,
and was gradually extended from handling horses to controlling weapons, boats and people.
As the meaning of the word evolved, it grew to include affairs in general. It was only in recent
times that the term was more closely related to business whilst other sectors, such as the
public sector, preferred the term administration. Both of these terms have strong connotations
with direction and control of resources. Nowadays the term management is globally used to
describe both the business and public, combining of direction and control of resources in
order to maximise the efficiency, output and profitability of an organization.
Modern Management
Management is the function that coordinates the efforts of people to accomplish the
organisation’s vision, goals and objectives, using the available resources and capabilities as
efficiently and effectively as possible.
6
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Management comprises the planning, organising, coordinating, commanding, controlling, and
staffing of an organization or initiative to accomplish a clearly defined goal. Management is
often defined as the organization and coordination of the activities of an enterprise in
accordance with certain policies and in achievement of clearly defined objectives.
However, we must never forget that the Managers that use management and the workers who
are managed are human, and therefore they are subject to the human strengths and
weaknesses that affect us all.
Theory X and Theory Y are theories of human motivation created and developed by Douglas
McGregor at the MIT Sloan School of Management in the 1960s. These have been widely used
in human resource management, organizational behaviour, organizational communication
and organizational development. They describe two contrasting models of workforce
motivation.
‘X’ Theory
In this theory, management assumes employees are inherently lazy and will avoid work if they
can and that they inherently dislike work. As a result of this, management believes that workers
need to be closely supervised and comprehensive systems of controls developed. A
hierarchical structure is needed with narrow span of control at each and every level.
‘Y’ Theory
In this theory, management assumes employees may be ambitious and self-motivated and
exercise self-control. It is believed that employees enjoy their mental and physical work duties.
According to them, work is as natural as play. They possess the ability for creative problem
solving, but their talents are underused in most organizations. Given the proper conditions,
Theory Y managers believe that employees will learn to seek out and accept responsibility and
to exercise self-control and self-direction in accomplishing objectives to which they are
committed. A Theory Y manager believes that, given the right conditions, most people will
want to do well at work.
Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) Theory
The Leader-Member Exchange Theory first emerged in the 1970s. It focuses on the quality of
the relationship that develops between managers and members of their teams.
The theory states that all relationships between managers and subordinates go through three
stages. These are:
1. Role-Taking;
2. Role-Making;
3. Routine development.
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Leadership or management
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LMX theory argument against X-Y Theory is that "leaders develop unique relationships with
different team members and that the quality of these relationships is a determinant of how
each team member will be treated and will therefore respond".
Rationalizing Management
Management is put into practice through the functions: planning, organizing, coordinating,
commanding, controlling, and staffing.
 Planning: Deciding what needs to happen in the future and generating plans for
action. Planning directly involves the establishment of visions, missions, goals and
objectives.
 Organizing: Making sure the human and non-human assets are put into place. Key
areas include the division of labour, the delegation of authority, creating departmental
structures, the scope of control, and coordination of assets.
 Coordinating: Creating a structure through which an organization’s goals can be
accomplished.
 Commanding: Determining what must be done in a situation and getting people to do
it by motivation, communication, performance appraisal, discipline and conflict
resolution.
 Controlling: The checking of progress against plans. The establishment of standards
based upon objectives. The measuring and reporting of performance. The taking of
corrective or preventive action.
 Staffing: Staffing consists of the recruiting, selecting, hiring, training and retention of
human capital.
So what needs managing?
On day one of any business course worth its salt, the student will be told that they exist in
either one of two states: Business as Usual (BAU); or Business Change (BC).
Business as Usual is often described as the normal execution of standard functional operations
within an organization. Business Change, on the other hand, is described as an approach taken
to transition individuals, teams, organizations or products to a desired future state.
Leading Vs. Managing
It is often considered that there is a big difference between Leadership and Management, and
this is a widely accepted concept.
Being a pure manager
Many people have “manager” in their job title, but this does not mean that they are leaders of
people. It is certainly possible to be titled as a manager of an organizational functionality or
process without leading any people.
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If you do have people reporting to you, then there are two key functions to your role: leading
people and managing people.
In almost all situations, these activities need to be interrelated but if you remove the Leading
People function then you run the risk of managing your Human Capital in the same way that
you would any other set of processes.
Running hot or cold
It is certainly possible to perform these activities without performing the role of leader and
often we find managers do just so. However, the result of such a cold and process oriented
approach is to fail in harnessing the full potential of your people. The old adage still rings true:
‘A happy ship is a productive ship’.
Getting Blended
Being an effective leader is about applying your leadership activities to your management
functions. A perfect example would be the delegation of work or responsibilities which
provides an opportunity to grow and empower the individual. However, with empowerment
comes accountability.
Rise of the Leader Manager
This paper would argue that you can’t have leadership without management and vice versa
where people and processes are concerned. So when you find yourself managing an
organizational process or unit, your own Leader Manager Style will invariable emerge.
You are the master of your own Leader Manager style, and you will endeavour to make the
best decision you can based on the information available, and your own ever-developing
personal traits and the evolving situation that you face.
The Leader Manager combines principles to create a positive organizational culture:
9
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Leadership or management
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In the following diagram, this paper demonstrates the relationship between leadership styles
and organizational performance.
The Leader Manager will adapt their personal leadership styles to the perceived performance.
For example, if an organization is performing poorly a Leader Manager is likely to adopt a more
autocratic style of leadership. If, on the other hand, the organization is doing well, then the
Leader Manager is more likely to adopt a Laissez-Faire approach. This diagram is only intended
to be a guide. The Leader Manager will make decisions that reflect their own personal
assessment of the situation.
Adapting Leadership style to Business Performance
10
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Leadership or management
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The Leader Manager Personal Assessment
The Leader Manager assessment starts with the asking of some simple questions.
Remember that at this point complexity is the enemy.
1.
Do you influence people in your organization and if so how many?
2.
What is the business impact of the managed activities that you perform on your
organization?
Answer both questions as honestly as possible.
Express your answer in terms of critical, high, medium, or low and calculate your score against
the Leader Manager Assessment Chart.
Formulate an overall score and that will give you an impression of your personal Leader
Manager status.
Once you have calculated your own score, arrange for someone similar to yourself in the
organization to answer the same question about you and then compare results in order to
achieve objectivity.
Remember that you should develop your own assessment questions to reflect your own
organization, but the general premise should remain the same.
An example of a simple Leader Manager Assessment Chart:
Management Impact
Leadership Influence
Critical
High
Medium
Low
Critical
1A
1
2
3
High
1
1
2
3
Medium
2
2
3
4
Low
3
3
4
4
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Agile Project Management™ and Change Management™ are trade marks of The APM Group Limited.
Leadership or management
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An example of the potential classifications of Leader Manager:
Leader Manager
Classification
Role Example
1A
Critical
CEO - Executives
1
High
Department Head
2
Medium
Team Leaders
3
Low
Team Member
4
Very Low
Entry Level Team Member
All examples are dependent on organizational situation and are subject to change.
In Summary
This white paper makes a number of key points:
 Leadership is the applying of influence and direction on an organization;
 Management is the coordination of effort in order to achieve a vision, goal or objective;
 Leadership and Management are actually manifestations of the same phenomenon
and not separate entities.
The Leader Manager is a scalable role with different individuals having different strengths and
weaknesses in leadership and management based on their influence and impact. A good
Leader Manager adapts their styles of leadership to the ever-changing situations that the
business faces, whilst exploiting the strengths of their own developing personal traits. The
Leader Manager is an obvious combining of these fundamental concepts. As a Leader
Manager, the individual applies aspects from both concepts in their day-to-day lives. The role
of Leader Manager can be applied to all individuals in an organization. The key question that
the individual must ask themselves is ‘to what degree does the Leader Manager role apply to
me?’ Some may be heavily leadership-based but have little management impact; others may
be heavily management-based, but have little leadership influence; some may be equally
involved in both. Whether you are managing those in your team, those around you or you are
managing your line managers, the Leader Manager is utilizing the basic concepts discussed
above at all levels of our personal and professional lives. The key is to recognise your Leader
Manager skills and feel no shame in exploiting your strengths to their full.
12
ITIL®, PRINCE2® and MSP® are registered trade marks of AXELOS Limited.
Agile Project Management™ and Change Management™ are trade marks of The APM Group Limited.
Leadership or management
Scenario information © The APM Group Ltd 2010
Bibliography
1. The man who changed everything, the life of James Clerk Maxwell – Basil Mahon, 2004
2. Leadership and the One Minute Manager – Kenneth Blanchard, Patricia Zigarmi & Drea
Zigarmi 2000
3. The One Minute Manager – Kenneth Blanchard & Spencer Johnson, 2011
4. Leadership: Theory and Practice Peter G. Northouse, 2012
5. Leadership in Psychiatry – Dinesh Bhugra, Pedro Ruiz & Susham Gupta, 2013
6. Making sense of Change Management – Esther Cameron & Mike Green, 2012
7. Managing successful programmes – Rod Sowden & The Cabinet Office, 2011
8. ITIL Service Strategy and Service Design – The Cabinet Office, 2011
13
ITIL®, PRINCE2® and MSP® are registered trade marks of AXELOS Limited.
Agile Project Management™ and Change Management™ are trade marks of The APM Group Limited.
Leadership or management
Scenario information © The APM Group Ltd 2010