Leadership

Leadership

Leadership

Examine your individual, essential elements of leadership and management.

For the assessment of my leadership and management elements, I used the leadership legacy assessment test (Galford & Maruca, 2011) since it is a great self-evaluation test and is provided free. These were my results: Ambassador – 17 points out of 25; Advocate – 20 out of 25; People Mover – 16 out of 25; Truth-Seeker – 19 out of 25; Creative Builder – 20 out of 25; and Experienced Guide – 18 out of 25. My feeling is that these results show an accurate picture of who I am. I believe in telling the truth and creativity is my best asset. I also enjoy working with people and I am good at project management. I believe that these elements make me a potentially great leader.

Differentiate between leadership and management roles, and provide specific examples from the text, literature, or a personal example.

While leadership and management roles seem intertwined, mostly because most managers are also leaders, there are a few differences between them. A leader is responsible for creating fans from followers. Their followers help them in the creation of their brand and achievement of goals. Managers have employees or staff who follow strict directions and seek to make them happy. Leaders are agents of change (Kotterman, 2006). They disrupt and innovate while encouraging change to find better ways of doing things. An example of such a leader is Elon Musk, who has disrupted how people do things through the innovations at Tesla (Mair, 2016). Managers maintain the status quo, going with what has been proved to work. Leaders establish and build relationships, focusing on people to realize their vision.

Managers establish and build processes and systems that are necessary for goal achievement. Leaders are risk-takers who are willing to try new ways of doing things. Managers are risk responsible for controlling risks, avoiding problems instead of embracing them (Kotterman, 2006). Leaders establish a vision and inspire people to turn it into reality. An example of a visionary leader is the late Steve Jobs who inspired employees at Apple Inc. to innovate and make the company great (Toma & Marinescu, 2013). Managers set goals and control situations to meet them.

References

Galford, R. M., & Maruca, R. F. (2011). The Leadership Legacy Assessment Test: Identifying Your Instinctive Leadership Style. http://www.yourleadershiplegacy.com/assessment.html.

Kotterman, J. (2006). Leadership versus management: what’s the difference? The Journal for Quality and Participation, 29(2), 13.

Mair, M. (2016). Enlightened entrepreneurship: the success of Elon Musk.

Toma, S. G., & Marinescu, P. (2013). Steve Jobs and modern leadership. Manager, (17), 260.