Leaders Followers

There are many different roles of leaders and managers in today's society. The two terms "leadership and management" have very diverse meanings. When defining the terms leadership and management, one must look at the root of each word. Leader, the root of leadership, is defined as "to guide in direction, course, action, opinion, etc" ("leader"). Notice that it states "to guide." A leader is not a person who points a person in the direction of a task, and influences their actions using their title. Leadership includes guiding a "follower" through various tasks, and learning from each other during the process of completing each task. Manage, the root of management, is defined as "to handle, direct, govern, or control in action or use." ("manage") Once again, note that to manage is not personally changed towards a single person. This definition states that to manage is "to control" the actions of another person.

Leadership has five defining key elements; influence, change, people, organizational objectives, and leaders-followers (Leadership 7). Influence is "the process of a leader communicating ideas, gaining acceptance of them, and motivating followers to support and implement the ideas through change" (Leadership 8). Influence is one of the main parts of leadership. Leadership is the process of influence, and it works both ways, the leader influencing the follower, meanwhile, the follower also influences the leader. Ideas are exchanged between all parties involved.

Management, on the other hand, has 4 main purposes; plan, organize, lead, and control (Leadership 7). On the topic of influence when it comes to management, there is definitely an influence. In this case though, the influence only goes one way between all parties involved. Managers give direction to followers; influence the behavior and actions of each follower, but aren't influenced by these followers as leaders are. Mangers tend to use their "formal title and authority" (Leadership 7) to influence their subordinates to do whatever is necessary. Leaders on the other hand have the ability to influence the people that they work with without the formal title.

When a front line supervisor wants to improve the productivity of their employees they should definitely lead. The reason that I think that the best way to improve productivity is to lead is simple-the