The Institute of Leadership and Management qualifications are popular with companies who wish to train their staff to recognised standards of excellence in leadership and management. The training courses are very work based, which means that what is learned can always be taken directly back to the work place and applied there. However, leadership and management is not the same thing. So, what exactly is the difference between leadership and management?
Put simply, a leader at the business level is one who leads, usually in a new direction. The inference is also that it is a successful direction and those led are by and large the better for it. A manager in executive management, by contrast, is someone who is in control and is directing a group of people according to rules, regulations, values and general principles that have been well established and accepted. The two disciplines are complementary to each other, in that both the leader and the manager is a person in control of a given group. However, while their roles generally differ to a large extent, they can overlap in places at times.
The general aim of the Institute of Leadership and Management is improving leadership and management in business. Higher level qualifications are designed to support those ready for the necessary training courses, and can improve management capability and help to create future leaders, thereby enhancing the careers of all those involved.
It would follow, therefore, that the training for the Institute of Leadership and Management qualification programmes needs to take into account the essential difference between leadership and management skills. It's the difference between empowering and being empowered; between a character based individual and a skills based one; the difference between removing performance barriers and staying within segmented areas of responsibility. Managers need leaders, and leadership needs management; the two are tied in a never-ending business waltz that works well when the balance is right.
It is only right that there is a qualification that links leadership and management. The two go hand in hand, and attempts to separate them will most likely cause more trouble than it is worth. Planning, organisation and coordination coupled with inspiration, innovation and motivation is already a winning combination. The leader's questions of what and why depend to a large degree on the manager's questions of how and when, and vice versa. The two sides of any coin should be different, but they still remain an indivisible part of the same object. And so it must be with the difference between leadership and management.
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