Leadership and management are two fundamental components of any organization’s functioning. However, it is vital to differentiate between them because these phenomena are not equal. Leadership can be determined as an individual’s ability to inspire, motivate, and enable others to attain the existing goals (Yukl & Gardner, 2018).
Management implies controlling an organization or a group to ensure it achieves current objectives (Yukl & Gardner, 2018). It means that not all managers can be leaders, as they can perform only monitoring functions and find issues that should be corrected while motivating and inspirational activities might be disregarded. At the same time, better results can be attained when a manager has strong leadership qualities.
Leadership becomes especially important when an organization enters a period of change. It might be characterized by the growth of uncertainty, resistance to change, and reduced motivation (Yukl & Gardner, 2018). For this reason, the results depend on a leader’s ability to organize teams and inspire people. From my own experience, I noticed that true leaders had high levels of involvement. They possessed an enhanced understanding of change and were ready to motivate others by discussing the process and the organization’s future with them. Moreover, leaders possess outstanding communication and listening skills to understand current issues and negotiate the most problematic aspects.
Altogether, it is possible to conclude that leadership is a key element of a successful change. Effective leaders create a positive vision of change by discussing it with followers and ensuring they have no fear of the proposed alteration. Additionally, they motivate people, which is central to higher motivation and engagement levels (Yukl & Gardner, 2018). Moreover, leaders can help to overcome resistance to change and resolve conflicts that might emerge during the organization’s restructuring. For this reason, leadership is one of the pillars of the successful change process.
Reference
Yukl, G., & Gardner, W. (2018). Leadership in organizations (9th ed.). Pearson.