THE ROLE OF A MANAGER IN AN ORGANISATION

A manager in an organisation is not always a leader. Management and leadership

are two different concepts, though often appear to overlap.

Modern organisations tend to be complex and operate in a global business

environment. Therefore, there is renewed focus on the importance of
management and leadership and their distinctive roles in promoting and
advancing the interests of the organisation. Hard competition and continuous
pressures for change demand that managers and leaders work closely together
for achieving business goals.

On the practical level, a manager is called upon to evince the quality of leadership
and a leader the knack for managing difficult situations in their respective roles in
any organisation. Pragmatically speaking, then, the distinction between a mana-
ger and leader is not problematic. “A mana-ger is often portrayed as a procedural
administrator/supervisor—an individual in an organisation with recognized formal
authority who plans, coordinates and implements the existing directions of the
organisation (Koontz et al, 1986).”

A leader, on the other hand, is defined as someone who occupies a position of

influence within a group that “extends beyond supervisory responsibility and
formal authority” (Vecchio et al. 1994: 504) and is involved in devising new
directions and leading followers “to attain group, organisational and societal
goals” (Avery 1990: 453). This distinction between the supervisory manager and
visionary leader has to be understood in terms of their respective tasks and
functions.

Dunsford, a management guru, believes that management is concerned with

‘efficiency’—with tasks such as coordinating resources and implementing policy,
while leadership has to concern itself with ‘effectiveness’ of making decisions,
setting directions and principles, formulating issues and grappling with problems.
Katz (1974: 90-102), however, has identified three critical managerial skills and
the last two happen to be attributes of competent leadership. These are:
technical skills (the ability to perform particular tasks or activities); interpersonal
skills (the ability to work well with other people); and conceptual skills (the ability
to see the ‘big picture’).

Modern leadership theory supports an integrated approach to management and

leadership. Early work on leadership identified the various styles of leadership
based on personal traits and behaviour of an effective leader, such as drive,
desire to lead, decisiveness, honesty and integrity, self-confidence, intelligence,
job relevant knowledge (Kirkpatrick and Locke 1991: 48-60). The behaviourist
models focused on the relationship between a leader’s actions and their impact
on the attitudes and performance of employees. These studies compared various
styles of leadership, such as authoritarian and democratic styles. They studied if
an effective leader was more prone to efficient accomplishment of a task rather
than being inclined to the welfare of employees and subordinates.
The ideal style, as proposed by Stogdill in 1974, combined the best of
both approaches. In later work we find considerations of leadership theory as
part of a wider approach to modern management.

The traditional distinctions between a manager and leader is disappearing.

Modern business operates in the midst of uncertainties as the current global
slowdown and enveloping financial crisis show. Accordingly, the role of a manager
demands flexibility, dynamism, management skills as well as leadership quality.