Team Development: The Difference Between Leadership and Management

Leaders are the people who get the work done from the employees concerning the goals of the company. The leaders play an important role in motivating the employees through their leadership and communication skills and inherent in them the vision of the organization. They make the employees work in a manner to achieve the objectives. The major aim of leaders is to influence and inspire the employees in order to their performance which as a result increase the efficiency and productivity in the organization.

Leader is basically the person who is a controller and motivator of any business group to ensure the business actions and business development by increasing business performance standard for developing and achieving business team objectives. They motivate people and ensure proper performance according to the business standard objectives.

Managers are distributed on various levels in an organization in order to manage the tasks in the different departments. The managers are also concern with the appraisal of the performances of the employees and they perform this task through implementing the perform appraisal process at the regular time intervals.

Managers of a business organization indicate those employees who manage business actions and ensure proper maintenance and teams to reach business objectives. They also ensure report making and bridging between the leaders and directorial of the business organization.

The main differences between leaders and managers: Often the roles of managers and leaders are considered as interchangeable, but their lies a difference between the functions which are performed by the managers and the leaders in order to get the employees work for the organization. The Leaders creates and communicates the mission and vision of the organization and inspires the employees to follow them, whilst the managers perform the tasks of setting the objectives as per vision and mission of the company.

• Managers set the objectives of the company. Leaders persuade the objectives developed by the managers.
• Managers communicate the policies to the leaders. Leaders communicate and influence the employees to work as per the policies.
• Managers give direction to the groups. Leaders provide directions in team.
• Managers create the ideas for the betterment of the organization. Leaders play the role of implementing those ideas into reality.
• Managers focus on things. Leaders focus on people. The major role of managers is planning in the organization. While the role of leaders is to inspire the employees to work.
• Managers direct the work to the employees. Leaders motivate the employees to work.

The functions of the management along with the styles of leadership applied to the organization can be implied on Toyota Plc to improve the strategies and operations of the company with the aim of lowering the costs of production. Leaders and managers use their roles and functions for the fulfillment of the organization’s goals and objectives.

Considering the situation where the cost of production increases because the main suppliers decided to increase their products prices, leaders and managers would have to use their skills and diligence and find strategies in handling production cost and still deliver quality products and increase the sales and revenue of the company. The combined efforts of theories of management along with the leadership skills reveal the organisation’s power in dealing with various problems such as lowering the production costs.

This theory says that a proper combination of workers and their knowledge, training and tools leads to organizational effectiveness in satisfying customers. The managers can plan the strategies like search and selection of suppliers in order to find good quality products at a lower price.  The leaders in Toyota Plc, use their skills to motivate the employees to be positive and don’t show resistance about adopting new and advanced technologies in order to lower the costs of production, by creating an environment of trust.

Management by objective(MBO) is the theory where managers and employees work together for the achievement of goals for a certain period of time. The managers work with the employees to set, record and monitor the standards of the performance and the leaders translate organizational goals into personal goals for the employees.

Classical management theory is the theory where management focuses more on production and less on the employees and it is applied in Toyota Plc, as managers make the policies with the aim to enhance the productivity. KAIZEN is a strategy developed by managers that applies to both, managers and employees, to continually improve the production. Leaders can adopt the participative style of leadership and assist managers in the task of reducing the costs of production. Behavioral theory of management is applied in Toyota Plc and the managers follow the policies which take into consideration the skills and abilities of the employees and the leaders use the transformational style of leadership where the leaders communicate with the employees and the policies are defined to the employees in an effective way (McCann, 2011).

Contingency theory focuses on the change in the strategies according to the changes in the situations. As conditions are always changing, the leaders play a huge role in influencing the employees to be prepared for changes and accept the challenges existent in the market. Considering the current changes in the production costs, the managers of Toyota Plc can implement several changes in the operational activities to lower the costs of the materials and equipment received from the suppliers, such as finding other suppliers or purchasing equipment that would allow the company to produce the products itself.

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