Management and Leadership Activities

Introduction

The rise of technology and globalization has bridged the gap that existed between the roles of managers and a leader. However, despite the effort to link the two titles together they are not the same.  While the main duties of a manager is to plan, coordinate, organize and control, the duties of a leader is to ensure that employees are inspired and motivated. A leader works towards getting employees to believe and understand the stated vision then work together towards the attainment of the goal. This is in contrary to a manager who administers duties to the subordinates and keenly follows on how they are carried out, (Stanley, 2006). 

In an organization it is the leader who acts as innovator, developer and initiator of activities to be accomplished by the manager. Actually the major difference between a leader and a manager is that the vision statement of a leader clearly elaborates the current state of the business, their aim as well as preparing the team for the task ahead. A manager mainly focuses on how to execute the vision by having it strategically broken down into roadmaps that guides the team.  Though much confusing, it is important to note that a manager mostly imitates what the leader has originated. Unlike a leader who challenges the status quo and strives towards coming up with a new thing, a manager normally maintains the status quo by just doing things right according to the stipulated rules and regulations instead of doing the right thing. In conclusion, a manager of an organization basically concentrates on the means while a leader targets the end, (Blair,1996). A leader is a risk taker and his activities are based on long term perspective thus making a leader much different from a manager who only views things on a short range.