Management Leadership
Specific information about this course and its requirements can be found below. For more general information
about taking Saylor Academy courses, including information about Community and Academic Codes of Conduct,
please read the Student Handbook.
Course Description
Learn effective management and leadership techniques, with topics including leadership theory, change
management, decision making, and the distinction between leadership and management.
Course Introduction
All managers are leaders. All leaders are managers. Which of these statements is true? Neither. The words are often
confused, even in academic settings, because we think that both leaders and managers are in charge of a specific task
or group of people. However, there are many differences between the two. One such distinction is that a manager
may not be in charge of people at all. For example, a manager may be in charge of data, including its acquisition,
analysis, and dissemination. Or consider the fact that a leader may have no formal power; many of history's greatest
leaders only had power "earned" from their peers instead of power granted by another individual or group. Think of
our country's founding fathers, like Thomas Jefferson, who went against the British government to draft the
Declaration of Independence – the situation created the "team", and from that, the recognized leaders emerged. All
of these distinctions will be explored in this course.
Not only will this course distinguish between managers and leaders, but it will provide you with some of the
esources to be both a competent manager and a good leader. Whether you want to run a doctor's office or a
company with thousands of employees, management, and leadership skills are the keys that open those doors. Many
elieve that the highest positions are given to those that know the most about the business, but in reality, those
positions are reserved for leaders whose leadership skills transcend business acumen. These skills are difficult to
teach in any setting, so it is important to study them carefully and look for real-world situations in which to practice
them.
The structure of this course focuses mostly on leadership because a good portion of management skills are reserved
for technical knowledge in a position. This course will begin with an introduction that will help further the
distinction between leadership and management, and then you will be introduced to major theories and models of
leadership and leadership development from a variety of perspectives. Next, you will be introduced to the process of
decision-making in a variety of leadership settings. You will then study the processes of leading independently, or
without direct authority. The final unit will focus on managing groups and teams. You may not be a leader after
concluding this course, but you certainly will have a better understanding of the qualities of leadership. Perhaps you
will discover there is a leader right at your fingertips.
This course includes the following units:
Unit 1: Introduction
Unit 2: Leadership Theory
Unit 3: Change Management and Decision-Making
Unit 4: Leading Without Formal Authority
Unit 5: Managing Groups and Teams
Course Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to:
• distinguish the concept of leadership from the concept of management;
• compare and contrast the major theories of leadership;
• analyze the decision-making process and change management;
• assess the skills necessary to exert power and influence in a non-authoritative leadership role; and
• evaluate the qualities necessary to effectively manage or lead in a team/group environment.
Throughout this course, you will also see learning outcomes in each unit. You can use those learning outcomes to
help organize your studies and gauge your progress.
Boundless Management: "Chapter 9, Section 1: Defining
Leadership"
One way that people become better leaders is to engage in critical self-reflection, particularly
eflection about their experiences with leadership and their own practice of leadership. It will
enefit you to keep a journal in this course to record these opportunities for self-reflection. Based
on what you read in this article, explain whether or not you believe you are a leader or a manager
and why. Write a few lines in your journal.
Leadership
Leadership is the process by which an individual mobilizes people and resources to achieve
a goal.
LEARNING OBJECTIVE
• Describe the relationship between leaders and followers
KEY POINTS
o Leadership is the process by which an individual motivates others and
mobilizes resources to achieve a goal.
o Leadership is both a set of behaviors that can be learned and a set of traits
that can be nurtured.
o Leadership is a relationship between followers and those who inspire and
provide direction for them. It involves emotional ties and commitments.
TERM
• Transformational Leadership
A theory of leading that enhances the motivation, morale, and performance of
followers through a variety of mechanisms.
Defining Leadership
Leadership is the process by which an individual mobilizes people and resources to achieve
a goal. It requires both a set of skills that can be learned as well as certain attributes that can
e nurtured. Leaders inspire, challenge, and encourage others. They can persuade and
influence, and they show resilience and persistence. All aspects of society have leaders. The
concept of leader may call to mind a CEO, a prime minister, a general, a sports team captain,
or a school principal; examples of leadership exist across a variety of organizations.
Unit 1: Introduction
Leaders motivate others to aspire to achieve and help them to do so. They focus on the big
picture with a vision of what could be and help others to see that future and believe it is
possible. In this way, leaders seek to
ing about substantive changes in their teams,
organizations, and societies.
Leadership is a relationship between followers and those who inspire them and provide
direction for their efforts and commitments. It affects how people think and feel about their
work and how it contributes to a larger whole. Effective leaders can mean the difference
etween increasing a team's ability to perform or diminishing itsperformance, between
keeping efforts on track or encountering disaster, and even between success or failure.
Leadership and Management
Leadership is one of the most important concepts in management, and many researchers
have proposed theories and frameworks for understanding it. Some have distinguished
among types of leadership such as charismatic, heroic, andtransformational leadership.
Other experts discuss the distinctions between managers and leaders, while others address
the personality and cognitive factors most likely to predict a successful leader. The many
dimensions of leadership indicate how complex a notion it is and how difficult effective
leadership can be.
A
aham Lincoln, 1860
A
aham Lincoln is considered a model of leadership. He fought to preserve national
unity amid the United States' greatest trial, the Civil War, and successfully worked to
end slavery .
Management versus Leadership
Though they have traits in common, leadership and management both have unique
esponsibilities that do not necessarily overlap.
LEARNING OBJECTIVE
• Distinguish between managerial roles and responsibilities and leadership roles and
esponsibilities
KEY POINTS
o Many view leaders as those who direct the organization through vision and
inspiration; managers are results-oriented and more focused on task
organization and efficiency.
o Managers sustain cu
ent systems and processes for accomplishing work,
while leaders challenge the status quo and make change happen.
o Such distinctions may create a negative concept of managers. "Leader"
ings
to mind heroic figures rallying people together for a cause, while "manager"
suggests less charismatic individuals focusing solely on efficiency.
TERMS
• management
The act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives using
available resources efficiently and effectively.
• leadership
A process of social influence in which one person enlists the aid and support of
others in accomplishing a common task.
Leaders vs. Managers
The terms "management" and "leadership" have been used interchangeably, yet there are
clear similarities and differences between them. Both terms suggest directing the activities
of others. In one definition, managers do so by focusing on the organization and
performance of tasks and by aiming at efficiency, while leaders engage others by inspiring a
shared vision and effectiveness. Managerial work tends to be more transactional,
emphasizing processes, coordination, and motivation, while leadership has an emotional
appeal, is based on relationships with followers, and seeks to transform.
One traditional way of understanding differences between managers and leaders is that
people manage things but lead other people. More concretely, managers administrate and
maintain the systems and processes by which work gets done. Their work includes planning,
organizing, staffing, leading, directing, and controlling the activities of individuals, teams, or
whole organizations for the purpose of accomplishing a goal. Basically, managers are
esults-oriented problem-solvers withresponsibility for day-to-day functions who focus on
the immediate, shorter-term needs of an organization.
In contrast, leaders take the long-term view and have responsibility for where a team or
organization is heading and what it achieves. They challenge the status quo, make change
happen, and work to develop the capabilities of people to contribute to achieving their
shared goals. Additionally, leaders act as figureheads for their teams and organizations by
epresenting their vision and values to outsiders. This definition of leadership may create a
negative bias against managers as less noble or less important: "Leader" suggests a heroic
figure, rallying people to unite under a common cause, while "manager" calls to mind less
charismatic individuals who are focused solely on getting things done.
Sources of Power
Power is the ability to influence the behavior of others with or without resistance by using a
variety of tactics to push or prompt action.
LEARNING OBJECTIVE
• Identify the six different sources of power available to organizational leaders and
how leaders can employ these sources of power and influence in a meaningful and
ethical way
KEY POINTS
o Power is the ability to get things done, sometimes over the resistance of
others.
o Leaders have a number of sources of power, including legitimate power,
eferent power, expert power, reward power, coercive power, and
informational power.
o All of these sources of power can be used in combination, and people often
have access to more than one of them.
o Power tactics fall along three dimensions: behavioral, rational, and structural.
TERMS
• power
The