Introduction: Leadership is like the weather. Everyone talks about it, but nobody does anything. Leadership is a strange concept - everyone can think of examples of great leaders, such as Churchill, Gandi, or Mandella, but few of us can define what we mean by leadership.
Leadership: The text defines leadership as the process where one individual influences other group members to work towards the achievement of defined group goals. This is not a particularly strong statement on leadership, but it is consistent with the material from Chapter 12.
In most organizational settings, leaders are typically legitimate power; they are typically assigned to positions giving them authority over a group of people. Of course there are many instances where this rule is violated, but in general, leaders occupy formal positions of power. This is not to suggest that leaders use coercive techniques to influence their subordinates. Indeed, the difference between a leader and a dictator is that leaders cannot rely on physical threats to enforce obedience. At least some of their influence must come willingly from their subordinates.
Leadership versus management: There is a distinct difference between managing individuals and leading them. Leaders inspire vision, imbue their subordinates with a purpose and strategy for achieving that goal. Managers ensure that the vision is implemented. Management is, by definition, more passive. As an analogy, consider the design team working on a new car. The group is made up of a large number of people with backgrounds in engineering, design, finance, accounting and manufacturing. The project leader's job is to inspire in all of these people a vision for the new vehicle and to propose a strategy for developing it. Managers look after the day-to-day coordinating tasks within the broad framework of the leaders vision. .
This should not imply that leadership is always separate from management.
