Leader versus Manager
Liberty University
AVIA 245 Aviation Leadership
Professor: Jim Molloy
2022
Leader versus Manager
The two dual concepts, leader and manager, leadership and management, are not interchangeable,
nor are they redundant. The differences between the two can, however, be confusing. In many
instances, to be a good manager one needs to be an effective leader. Many CEOs have been hired in the
hope that their leadership skills, their ability to formulate a vision and get others to “buy into” that
vision, will propel the organization forward. In addition, effective leadership often necessitates the
ability to manage to set goals; plan, devise, and implement strategy; make decisions and solve problems;
and organize and control. For our purposes, the two sets of concepts can be contrasted in several ways.
First, we define the two concepts differently. In Management and Organizational Behavior, we
defined management as a process consisting of planning, organizing, directing, and controlling. Here we
define leadership as a social (interpersonal) influence relationship between two or more people who are
dependent on each another for goal attainment.
Second, managers and leaders are commonly differentiated in terms of the processes through
which they initially come to their position. Managers are generally appointed to their role. Even though
many organizations appoint people to positions of leadership, leadership per se is a relationship that
revolves around the followers’ acceptance or rejection of the leader. Thus, leaders often emerge out of
events that unfold among members of a group.
Third, managers and leaders often differ in terms of the types and sources of the power they
exercise. Managers commonly derive their power from the larger organization. Virtually all organizations
legitimize the use of certain “carrots and sticks” (rewards and punishments) as ways of securing the
compliance of their employees. In other words, by virtue of the position that a manager occupies
(president, vice president, department head, supervisor), certain “rights to act” (schedule production,
contract to sell a product, hire and fire) accompany the position and its place within the hierarchy of
authority. Leaders can also secure power and the ability to exercise influence using carrots and sticks;
however, it is much more common for leaders to derive power from followers’ perception of their
knowledge (expertise), their personality and attractiveness, and the working relationship that has
developed between leaders and followers.
From the perspective of those who are under the leader’s and manager’s influence, the motivation
to comply often has a different base. The subordinate to a manager frequently complies because of the
role authority of the manager, and because of the carrots and sticks that managers have at their
disposal. The followers of a leader comply because they want to. Thus, leaders motivate primarily
through intrinsic processes, while managers motivate primarily through extrinsic processes.
Finally, it is important to note that while managers may be successful in directing and supervising
their subordinates, they often succeed or fail because of their ability or inability to lead.9 As noted
above, effective leadership often calls for the ability to manage, and effective management often
requires leadership.
2. What are the processes associated with people coming to leadership positions?
Leadership is a process, a complex and dynamic exchange relationship built over time between
leader and follower and between leader and the group of followers who depend on each other to attain
a mutually desired goal.10 There are several key components to this “working relationship”: the leader,
the followers, the context (situation), the leadership process per se, and the consequences (outcomes)
(see Exhibit 13.3).11 Across time, each component interacts with and influences the other components,
and whatever consequences (such as leader-follower trust) are created influence future interactions. As
any one of the components changes, so too will leadership.
The Leader
Leaders are people who take charge of or guide the activities of others. They are often seen as the
focus or orchestrater of group activity, the people who set the tone of the group so that it can move
forward to attain its goals. Leaders provide the group with what is required to fulfill its maintenance and
task-related needs. (Later in the chapter, we will return to the “leader as a person” as part of our
discussion of the trait approach to leadership.)
The Follower
The follower is not a passive player in the leadership process. Edwin Hollander, after many years of
studying leadership, suggested that the follower is the most critical factor in any leadership event.13 It is,
after all, the follower who perceives the situation and comes to define the needs that the leader must
fulfill. In addition, it is the follower who either rejects leadership or accepts acts of leadership by
surrendering his power to the leader to diminish task uncertainty, to define and manage the meaning of
the situation to the follower, and to orchestrate the follower’s action in pursuit of goal attainment.
The follower’s personality and readiness to follow determine the style of leadership that will be
most effective. For example, individuals with an internal locus of control are much more responsive to
participative styles of leadership than individuals with an external locus of control.14 Individuals with an
authoritarian personality are highly receptive to the effectiveness of directive acts of leadership.15 It is
the followers’ expectations, as well as their performance-based needs, that determine what a leader
must do in order to be effective.
The strength of the follower’s self-concept has also been linked to the leadership process. High-self-
esteem individuals tend to have a strong sense of self-efficacy, that is, a generalized belief they can be
successful in difficult situations. They therefore tend to be strongly motivated to perform and persist in
the face of adversity.16 The high-self-esteem follower tends to be responsive to participative styles of
leadership. Low-self-esteem individuals, who doubt their competence and worthiness and their ability to
succeed in difficult situations, function better with supportive forms of leadership. This helps them deal
with the stress, frustration, and anxiety that often emerge with difficult tasks. Followers without a
readiness to follow, limited by their inability to perform and lack of motivation and commitment, usually
need more directive forms of leadership.
Follower behavior plays a major role in determining what behaviors leaders engage in. For example,
followers who perform at high levels tend to cause their leaders to be considerate in their treatment
and to play a less directive role. Followers who are poor performers, on the other hand, tend to cause
their leaders to be less warm toward them and to be more directive and controlling in their leadership
style.
The Context
Situations make demands on a group and its members, and not all situations are the same. Context
refers to the situation that surrounds the leader and the followers. Situations are multidimensional. We
discuss the context as it pertains to leadership in greater detail later in this chapter, but for now let’s
look at it in terms of the task and task environment that confront the group. Is the task structured or
unstructured? Are the goals of the group clear or ambiguous? Is there agreement or disagreement
about goals? Is there a body of knowledge that can guide task performance? Is the task boring?
Frustrating? Intrinsically satisfying? Is the environment complex or simple, stable or unstable? These
factors create different contexts within which leadership unfolds, and each factor places a different set
of needs and demands on the leader and on the followers.
The Process
The process of leadership is separate and distinct from the leader (the person who occupies a
central role in the group). The process is a complex, interactive, and dynamic working relationship
between leader and followers. This working relationship, built over time, is directed toward fulfilling the
group’s maintenance and task needs. Part of the process consists of an exchange relationship between
the leader and follower. The leader provides a resource directed toward fulfilling the group’s needs, and
the group gives compliance, recognition, and esteem to the leader. To the extent that leadership is the
exercise of influence, part of the leadership process is captured by the surrender of power by the
followers and the exercise of influence over the followers by the leader. Thus, the leader influences the
followers and the followers influence the leader, the context influences the leader and the followers,
and both leader and followers influence the context.
The Consequences
A number of outcomes or consequences of the leadership process unfold between leader, follower,
and situation. At the group level, two outcomes are important:
Have the group’s maintenance needs been fulfilled? That is, do members of the group like and
get along with one another, do they have a shared set of norms and values, and have they developed a
good working relationship? Have individuals’ needs been fulfilled as reflected in attendance, motivation,
performance, satisfaction, citizenship, trust, and maintenance of the group membership?
Have the group’s task needs been met? That is, there are also important consequences of the
leadership process for individuals: attendance, motivation, performance, satisfaction, citizenship, trust,
and maintenance of their group membership.
The leader-member exchange (LMX) theory of the leadership process focuses attention on
consequences associated with the leadership process. The theory views leadership as consisting of a
number of dyadic relationships linking the leader with a follower. A leader-follower relationship tends to
develop quickly and remains relatively stable over time. The quality of the relationship is reflected by
the degree of mutual trust, loyalty, support, respect, and obligation. High- and low-quality relationships
between a leader and each of his followers produce in and out groups among the followers. Members of
the in group come to be key players, and high-quality exchange relationships tend to be associated with
higher levels of performance, commitment, and satisfaction than are low-quality exchange relationships.
Attitudinal similarity and extroversion appear to be associated with a high-quality leader-member
relationship.
The nature of the leadership process varies substantially depending on the leader, the followers,
and the situation and context. Thus, leadership is the function of an interaction between the leader, the
follower, and the context. The leadership context for the leader of a group of assembly line production
workers differs from the context for the leader of a self-managing production team and from the
context confronted by the lead scientists in a research laboratory. The leadership tactics that work in the
first context might fail miserably in the latter two.
