The Manager versus the Leader
| Author | Lieutenant Harry C. Mounts |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X9707000207 |
| Published date | 01 April 1997 |
| Date | 01 April 1997 |
LIEUTENANT HARRY C. MOUNTS Jr., B.Sc.
Anne Arundel County Police Dept, Maryland, USA
THE MANAGER VERSUS
THE LEADER
Introduction
A close correlation exists between organizational effectiveness and the
abilities of its leaders. The major responsibility of every supervisor or
manager is to provide leadership for the officers he or she commands;
however, there is a distinction between a manager and a leader. A manager
is an assigned organizational role, whereas a leader is a role that can only
be granted by one's subordinates. Thus, not all managers are leaders and
not all leaders are managers. Quite simply, leadership status must be
earned.
The Leader
The leader influences his subordinates largely through his own actions, by
directing the energies and abilities of individuals towards the
accomplishment of predetermined goals, and instilling the desire to achieve
them. Managers who lack leadership skills will attempt to get people to do
what management want through the use of control techniques. The true
leader has the ability to get people to want to achieve common objectives,
objectives that are the goals of management.
Mistakes
Police leaders have insight into their strengths and weaknesses, are able
to recognize their deficiencies, and fully understand their commitment.
They monitor the results they get from their actions and then modify their
actions to get the result they want. Leaders afford their people opportunities
to learn through experience and accept the fact that mistakes will occur.
The aim is not to find and record failures of people, but to remove the
causes of failure in order to help people do a better job with less effort.
Merely correcting mistakes is not improvement; changing the system or
procedures so that mistakes and defects are reduced is.
People like to know how they aredoing. Feedback is how they find out.
Leaders provide feedback which assists in giving people opportunities to
decide and opportunities to grow, because leaders know that people are the
only source of creating improvement and change.
If
they do not grow,
continuous improvement will be impaired. Leaders understand that to
motivate someone you must influence their emotions. True leaders are able
to set up conditions that maximize people to develop an interest,
excitement, and pride in their work resulting in their desire to perform well
for their own reasons.
Control
Leaders manage the systems of consequence so that it is in the best interest
April 1997 The Police Journal 133
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