Management, Leadership and Project Management

Answer

Week 4 Discussion: Management, Leadership and Project Management

Management and Leadership

Leaders are distinguished from managers in such aspects as power and control. However, while managers seek stability by quickly solving organizational problems, leaders tolerate chaos and fully understand the conflicting parties, before solving the issue. Consequently, it is important to note that bad managers can be good leaders just like bad leaders can be good managers,

Management Vs. Leadership

Although management and leadership are complementary, they are different in various aspects including such aspects as vision establishment, vision execution and human development (Algahtani, 2014). Management refers to the rational assessment of situations and systematically selecting goals and purposes in an organization. Leadership, on the other hand, entails establishing social relationships aimed at leading others, towards the desired future. However, while both leadership and management work towards positive outcomes, they undertake different strategies in achieving such outcomes. Firstly, while management plans and budgets, to achieve the organization’s vision and mission, leadership creates visions and strategies, to guide the organization towards the achievement of a predetermined goal (Algahtani, 2014). Secondly, management implements plans to articulate their functions to achieve their goals while leaders align people towards the achievement of common goals.

Bad Managers Vs. Good Leaders

 Good leaders are charismatic, decisive and have a vision (Neal & Conway, 2013). Leadership and management require different skills in achieving the desired goal. Leadership skills are however personal and can be acquired by anyone, without any influential grounds. For that reason, individuals may be bad managers, but still, demonstrate leadership skills that crown them good leaders.

Bad Leaders Vs. Good Managers

Good leadership entails generating new ideas and motivating followers to achieve common goals. Individuals may lack leadership skills, but still demonstrate good managerial skills, that would consequently crown him good managers.

Overall, leadership entails creating visions and motivating individuals in achieving the designed common goals. Management, on the other hand,  entails coordinating individuals towards the achievement of organizational goals. While leadership and management complement each other, they demonstrate different skills which can be emulated by the other to achieve goals.

Project Management

Project management refers to the application of skills, knowledge, tools, and techniques for executing projects and accomplishing project management processes in such aspects planning and controlling, within the specified time. Project managers have the responsibility of executing their projects within the required time, to minimize operational cost. On the contrary, project managers experience stumbling blocks while dealing with clients with unclear decisions, thus impacting the project delivery time. Project managers can, however, employ strategies in managing the situation and meeting their deliverables effectively.

Project management entails execution of various projects, by executing various steps; initiating, planning, executing, controlling and closing the project.  Therefore, a project has an accurate schedule and plan for positive outcomes (Beleiu, Crisan, & Nistor, 2015). Dealing with undecided customers is common in project management. Project managers should, therefore, employ various strategies to ensure they get into terms with the client, to ensure they meet their deliverable effectively.

Fundamentally, a lack of clarity is identified to be the main cause of disagreement between project managers and their customers. Therefore, a project manager dealing with a client who keeps changing his mind should ensure clarity about the customer needs. The project manager should hence explain the project outcomes for each of the client’s decisions while emphasizing on the cost and time required to perform each of the tasks (Beleiu, Crisan & Nistor, 2015). The project manager should hence ask the client to make his final decision, which will further be documented, and signed off by the two parties, and hence clarify on the consequences of not delivering the project on time.

Overall project managers experience difficulties while dealing with both internal and external customers. However, by allowing the client to clarify on his needs and explaining the requirements of the project, the project manager is more likely to deliver his deliverables effectively.