Educational Leadership Management Effectiveness vs.

Educational Leadership

Management Effectiveness vs. Leadership Effectiveness

Just like is the case with the terms management and leadership, effective management and effective leadership are in most cases used synonymously. The two however differ. In seeking to bring out the difference between management effectiveness and leadership effectiveness, it would be prudent to first revisit the terms leadership and management. In the words of Lussier (2008, p.334), "management is broader in scope than leadership." While a leader attempts to influence people towards the accomplishment of certain goals by winning over their trust, a manager largely relies on the existing systems and structures to direct individuals towards the accomplishment of organizational goals and objectives. For this reason, effectiveness from a managerial perspective has got to do with the successful utilization of the existing systems and structures to get people to accomplish organizational goals. On the other hand, effectiveness from a leadership perspective should be seen as the ability to win over the trust of others to the extent where one is able to motivate or influence individuals towards the accomplishment of a given task. Essentially, an effective manager should be an expert when it comes to resource utilization, time management, coordination, etc. Individuals with a deficiency in the said skills cannot make effective managers. On the other hand, an effective leader in addition to being a "people's person" should also be a visionary. People are more likely to follow leaders who inspire them. A leader who is unable to inspire a group towards the accomplishment of a certain task cannot therefore be regarded effective.

Successful Leadership vs. Effective Leadership

A leader could be effective, successful, or both effective and successful. When a leader uses his or her position of leadership (as opposed to his or her persona) to get followers to accomplish certain tasks, that is called successful leadership. However, as Hellriegel and Slocum (2009, p.310) point out, "an effective leader's influence is soft and indirect." Effective leadership is therefore not in any way dependent on formal authority. In that regard, a leader who gets things done through coercion as opposed to consensus could be regarded a successful but not an effective leader. Looked at from another perspective, successful leadership differs from effective leadership on the basis of emphasis. While emphasis in successful leadership is on power and position, the emphasis when it comes to effective leadership is often on the personal attributes of a leader. It should also be noted that when a leader depends on both position/power and personal attributes to get things done, such a leader can be regarded both effective and successful.

Determinants of Organizational Effectiveness