The Art of Leading between Management and Leadership

Abstract

All societies include various types of economic, social, and political organizations. Understood as consciously-run activity systems, depending on their features, organizations set goals. Achieving them requires devising a strategy, establishing the ways in which it will be implemented as well as using all the resources available in order to put into practice the decisions made. In this context, organizational management and leadership play a particularly important role. This study aims to highlight some of the differences between management and leadership and, implicitly, between a manager and a leader. Another goals is to propose an integral perspective in which the two processes relate with and complete each other, contributing to a better functioning of the structure to which they refer - an organization, company, firm, institution, party, regardless of its field of activity: business, politics, education, etc. In other words, we state that although they are different models of the art of leading, management and leadership also have complementary features and it is only together that they may contribute to an organization’s complete success. As a result, management and leadership should interact and complete each other. At the same time, the border between a manager and a leader is no longer a rigid one, as the ideal is a manager-leader or a leader-manager who, depending on the actual situation encountered, their own personality and on the personality of other actors in the organization, should be able to corroborate the skills and abilities which will lead to success. Therefore, a manager should also be a leader, and a leader should also be a manager if the context and circumstances demand it.