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The Practice of Group Leadership

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A simple definition of leadership is "the art of motivating a group of people to act towards achieving a common goal" (Ward, 2011). The terms "leadership" and "management," may seem interchangeable, however there's a major difference between the two that can categorize them separately. One major difference, is management responsibilities are generally much more task orientated than leadership responsibilities. Management produces order and consistency while leadership produces change and movement. Managers are responsible for planning, organizing, controlling, and taking corrective action when necessary. On the other hand, leaders are responsible for creating the vision, setting strategies, aligning people, motivating/ or inspiring others, and satisfying unmet needs. In the article The social scientific study of leadership: Quo Vadis?, the three most important differences between leaders and managers is the responsibility leaders have to implement the companies vision, the ability to making strategic decisions, and the maintenance. The core differences between these two positions, will ultimately produce separate processes. According to Yukl, (1994, p.4), “the essence of the argument seems to be that managers are oriented towards stability and leaders are oriented towards innovations; managers get people to to do things more efficiently, whereas leaders get people to agree about what things should be done. Managers have the capabilities to become leaders by providing vision, implementing strategy, and inspiring vision throughout organizations units within the organization." The article explains the purpose of strategic leadership, thus is to provide guidance to organizations, and giving meaning to purpose. Characteristics of successful and unsuccessful leaders are used to predict leadership effectiveness. Research over the past three decades have concluded a set of core traits of successful leaders. However, the traits describe

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