How Will Ethical Issues Affect Leadership in a Business Essay

When leaders are involved in planning, organizing, staffing and controlling, they re involved in management. Both processes involve influencing a group of individuals toward a goal attainment.” Both management and leadership involve influence, working with people, meeting goals and many other similar functions. However, there is a distinct difference between leadership and management and the main functions of the two are quite dissimilar. It was argued by Kotter (1990) that the “function of management is to provide order and consistency to organizations, whereas the primary function of leadership is to produce change and movement.” Whilst managers plan and budget, a leader creates a vision and sets strategies, instead of controlling and problem solving a leader motivates and inspires his followers. In addition to this, Bennis and Nanus (1985) made the distinction very clear, “managers are people who do things right and leaders are people who do the right things.”

Although it argued that the two are very different it is for this reason that both are needed for an organization to be a success. Without management outcomes can be meaningless or misdirected and without leadership the outcome can be stifling and bureaucratic. This was the opinion of Warner Burke (1986:68), who said that “For clarity of goals and direction, managers need leaders. For indispensable help in reaching goals, leaders need managers.”

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