Management Vs. Leadership
Management and leadership are oft intertwined yet hardly synonymous, and much the same can said of the matters of supervision and administration. All of these play a role in management, but management itself stands as something ultimately distinct, a medley as it were, as well as something vital for librarians.
Management as a word derives from the Latin term “manus,” meaning hand (from which we also receive manipulate, mandate, manifest, and other such words). As a bit of a novice linguist this proves quite intriguing as it gives a sense of the original usage and intent behind a word which, to us, has become merely a word meaning itself—management is management, or at least, the people who manage, or maybe the application of managing, but rarely is it defined as anything beyond itself. The symbol of the hand has long symbolized power and control (those familiar with A Song of Ice and Fire will be all too familiar with this), and that symbolism carries over here: a manager is the hand of the company, charged with acting in and representing its interests and ensuring that its employees and resources are handled well (Alpenfels 4-21).
To carry on with the allusions to A Song of Ice and Fire, we see both the characters of Eddard Stark and Tyrion Lannister play the part of the Hand of the King, and in both cases it is shown that while the king leads the kingdom, it is the Hand that manages it. We see right there a dichotomy, as the king acts as the face, setting the tone of the country, the organization as it were, inspiring and leading its people but largely being hands off in terms of the myriad cogs spinning and keeping the kingdom together and running efficiently. That falls instead to the Hand of the King, who acts as the kingdom’s manager-in-chief basically. He rarely inspires and rarely leads (and indeed may rarely be seen), instead working directly with the people who keep the kingdom running to ensure that they are doing their jobs and doing them effectively and efficiently. He manages in other words, handles the operations of the kingdom while the king leads the kingdom forward and provides a voice to the people, the king looking outward while the Hand looks inward.
This serves to highlight one division between leadership and management but it leaves the areas of administration and supervision untouched. After all, the Hand of the kingdom could be likened to a top level manager who does indeed incorporate many elements of administration and supervision. This then acts to highlight a major point in the first chapter—the very nature of management varies depending on the level on which it is executed within the organizational hierarchy (Evans and Alire 10). The higher a manager is within the company hierarchy, the more removed they are from the actual actions which make the company what it is. Instead of being focused on the day-to-day technical matters they’re focused more on the conceptual, on the more abstract and broad measures that give the company a sense of direction, helping to accentuate the vision and plan laid forth by the leaders and make it so.
Low level managers on the other hand work directly with the employees on the ground, ensuring efficiency and morale and interpreting those more abstract elements into a concrete reality, taking budgets and deciding how to ensure they’re met, while maintaining an understanding of the skills and tasks employees need to accomplish so that they can be there to help, train, mentor, and ultimately get the most out of their employees. For them there is less administration and more supervision.
This then leaves middle managers who, like the middle child, are often the most easily maligned despite their crucial role in an organization’s functioning. In the simplest of terms they bridge the gap between upper and lower management, having to do a little of everything but ultimately working most with people and within the realm of administration. They’re more detached from the operations on the ground, yet still aware of them and able to step in when need be, but they’re also conscious of the higher level operations that are pushing the company forward. This puts them in a key position, as often as not the degree of communication and understanding between the top and the bottom can be strained, since saying something should be done and making it happen are very different things. Thus they have to smooth things over, keeping the top and bottom informed of what and why the other is doing what it is, resolving conflicts, and also dealing with individuals and clients outside of the company.
Even with all that said, leadership can and should still be a part of management. This then serves as the final division between the levels of management, as the bottom level needs little to no leadership qualities. While these qualities may help, their role is more in organizing and enacting rather than innovating. The exact opposite can be said of the top level management, wherein leadership qualities are invaluable as much more of their role is in just that—leading and directing the company. After all, modern companies are not kingdoms directed by a dictator but rather bureaucracies headed by council and cooperation and so those at the top must still play the role of leader. And indeed it’s argued that even those on lower levels of management, while they do not need leadership qualities per se, are becoming increasingly valuable in a society focused more on knowledge and communication than simply doing a job, and where matters of employee morale and motivation are key ("Wall Street Journal"). People want to know not just what to do, but why they’re doing it and why they need to do their best.
This evolution of the ties between leadership and management can be seen in the evolution of management styles. Early approaches such as Scientific Management focused on the organization as an almost mechanistic thing, a machine from which maximum efficiency could be derived with just the right style of management. Especially with Scientific Management, the worker was nothing more than a cog to be set in place, and managers the men to ensure they ran efficiently. But with more modern approaches and with the adaptation of older approaches, issues such as employee morale, human relations, and communication became more emphasized, ultimately culminating in a realization that no one approach can fit every company and every situation, let alone even every level of management, leading to Contingency Theory and the Composite Approach (Evans and Alire 19-21).
Bringing my own opinion into the matter, I would definitely say I favor the Contingency and Composite approaches as I know good and well the value of being flexible and being able to react to the situation as it is rather than trying to warp the situation to fit your beliefs on the matter. The latter just amounts to hammering a square peg through a round hole. It can be done, perhaps, but there will be damage done as well in the process. Much like on the battlefield, where a general has to react to what the enemy is actually doing, not what they believes the enemy will do nor what they want them to do, a manager must work with the reality that is going on around them, with the unique dynamic of those beneath and above them and the specific environment of their work, along with the particulars of the economy, with politics, and with everything else that swirls around the realm of business. Training yourself to follow just one set-in-iron set of rules is setting yourself up to be broken or, at best, be an inefficient manager set more in enacting dogma than responding to the situation around them.
Furthermore, I also prefer an emphasis on employee morale as high morale and a strong sense of purpose and direction through leadership will bring along with it efficiency, whereas a focus on efficiency alone will often sap morale and leave workers feeling dehumanized, increasing the rates of attrition, mistakes, and other unfortunate events. Employees who believe in the company and those in charge will be much more likely to be loyal and to do their best, though a manager must always be aware of those who will abuse the system to try and skirt by, doing as little as possible. Even here a manager must be flexible and respond to those around them as individuals each needing a slightly different approach. They must try to understand them to some degree and work with who they are, helping them to become who they need to be but also helping them to become part of a team, part of something greater than themselves and feeling value in that. Of course, that could be another topic altogether, balancing individual and team based focuses.
When it all comes down to it, managers aren’t necessarily full blown leaders—they won’t be waving banners while marching down the Champs-Élysées at least—but they do need to learn from leaders and incorporate a degree of the skills that make a good leader—inspiring, motivating, innovating, and moving things forward—depending on the particular needs of their level of management and their particular situation. A manager learns to adapt to the needs of their position in short, utilizing elements of leadership, supervision, and administration as needed, keeping in touch with the technical skills of the job, learning how to communicate effectively and negotiate with those inside and outside of the company, and learning how to think, direct, challenge, and change all as their level of management demands. And it is this same adaptiveness that, more and more, is needed in the field of librarianship as more is expected of each individual librarian, the border between positions blurring as budgets tighten (Evans and Alire 22).
Alpenfels, Ethel. "The Anthropology and Social Significance of the Human Hand." Artificial Limbs: A Review of Current Developments. Vol. 2, Num. 2 (1955): 4-21. Web. 25 Jan. 2014. http://www.oandplibrary.org/al/1955_02_004.asp
Evans, G. Edward, and Camila Alire. Management Basics for Information Professionals. 3rd ed. Chicago: Neal-Schuman, 2013. 10, 19-21, 22. Print.
"What is the Difference Between Management and Leadership?" The Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal. Web. 22 Jan 2014. http://guides.wsj.com/management/developing-a-leadership-style/what-is-the-difference-between-management-and-leadership/
Evans, G. Edward, and Camila Alire. Management Basics for Information Professionals. 3rd ed. Chicago: Neal-Schuman, 2013. 10, 19-21, 22. Print.
"What is the Difference Between Management and Leadership?" The Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal. Web. 22 Jan 2014. http://guides.wsj.com/management/developing-a-leadership-style/what-is-the-difference-between-management-and-leadership/