According to Griffin & Moorhead (2001), leadership refers to the employment of non-coercive influence to direct activities of team members, to attain a set goal. Leadership involves the ability to motivate and influence characters of others towards achievements of desired results. Leaders according to the authors refer to the people with compelling ideas, character, strength, and administrative ability to direct others for achievement.

            According to Kotter, leadership and management differ in a creation of agenda, development of the human network for attaining the agenda, execution of plans, and realizing of outcomes (Kotter, 1990). A leader establishes direction by developing a vision and strategies for generating changes for the attainment of the vision while the manager is involved with planning, budgeting, and allocating resources where needed. A leader aligns people by giving the direction by words and deeds to the necessary people that would understand the vision and strategies. In executing plans, a leader will motivate and inspire people to overcome major barriers and satisfy basic and unfulfilled needs, while managers control and solve problems by scheming results and the plans to solve problems (Kotter, 1990). Leaders generate change to a dramatic level and bear the ability to produce necessary changes. A manager, on the other hand, generates a level of predictability and order and consistently produces major findings as expected by the organization’s stakeholders.

            According to Kotter (1990), two major activities that differentiate management and leadership are a creation of agenda and execution of plans. In the creation of agenda, a leader is greatly involved in establishing the direction. A leader lays down a vision for the future and strategies for generating required changes to attain the vision. A manager, on the other hand, is involved with planning and budgeting. The manager is involved with the establishment of meticulous guidelines necessary for the required findings. In executing plans, the managers are involved with the allocation of the resources that are necessary for generating required results. A leader is involved with motivating and inspiring subjects towards attaining visions and mission. This is attained through energizing people to overcome bureaucratic and resource barriers to meet fundamental needs.

            Robert House Path-Goal theory is dependent on the leadership style that is based on the assumption that a person will behave in a manner that is dependent on the expectation that the conduct is followed by given product and the charisma of the outcome to an individual. The theory is useful as it affirms that a leader has a capability of affecting performance, satisfaction, and motivation by offering rewards to achieve performance goals, clarify paths of the goals, and remove obstacles to attaining performance. Leadership styles dependent on situations include directive, supportive, participative, and achievement-oriented leadership. Even though Path-Goal theory is useful in meeting the set goal, it is dependent on situational factors. Situational factors comprise of subordinate’s personality and environmental features.

            Fiedler’s Least Preferred Co-worker (LPC) theory is a leadership style that measures personal leadership orientation through leadership prioritization between task-focus and people-focus, relationships, power, and task structure. A leader is defined to have human relations orientation when the scores are high and have task orientation when the scores are low. This theory is useful in measuring task orientation and people oriented focus of the leader. It is, however, weak as it is not always an accurate measure of the effectiveness of leadership. The most comprehensive measurement, therefore, is the Path-Goal Theories of Leadership as it fits the employee and the work environment to attain the set goal of increasing the motivation, satisfaction, and empowerment of the employees.

References

Kotter, P. (1990). Kotter’s Distinction between Management and Leadership: A Force for

Change, How Leadership differs from Management. John P. Kotter Inc.

Moorhead, G. & Griffin, R. (2001). Organizational Behavior (1^st Ed). Delhi: A.I.T.B.S.

Publishers & Distributors.