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Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 149 (2014) 808 – 812

LUMEN 2014

Leadership and Management

Radu Răducana, Ramona Răducanb,*
a,b
Tibiscus University, Timișoara, Lascăr Catargiu, No. 6, 300559, Romania

Abstract

The paper is intended to present an analysis of new theories regarding the leadership and the management and to promote a new
concept, that of “Leadership in the mirror”. An organization that intends to “grow up new leaders” is good to hire managers
according to the type of leadership they intend to implement. There is a great difference between manager and leader. The first
one faces complexity and the second one faces changes, grouping characteristic activities of management and leadership. Every
action system implies taking the decision about what has to be done, creating relations between people; relations that may lead to
the fulfilment of a common plan, and then the essay to assure those people are doing their job. Every person realizes these three
actions in different ways.

© 2014
© 2014 The
The Authors.
Authors. Published
Published by
by Elsevier
Elsevier Ltd.
Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/).
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the Organizing Committee of LUMEN 2014.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the Organizing Committee of LUMEN 2014.
Keywords: leadership in the mirror; leading; manager; decision; interpersonal relations

1. Introduction

The leadership expresses one’s ability to determine the others to participate in a certain way, being a process of
orientation of some people by means of communication and convictions and a complex of elements that regards the
trust in the people going to the same direction, the mission of the analyzed system, the collective decision and the
motivation of human resources.
The management activity supposes leadership, being more complex than this one, which is limited and
determinate by the personal characteristics of the leader, the climate from the organization and the business
environment. Inside a group, the leader has a privileged status and his influence in receiving the message will be

*
Corresponding author. Tel.: 0040 723 207 443
E-mail address: [email protected]

1877-0428 © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/).
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the Organizing Committee of LUMEN 2014.
doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.08.322
 Radu Răducan and Ramona Răducan / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 149 (2014) 808 – 812 809

felt. At the group level, the leadership and the influence are according to communication, which can be: horizontal –
between the group members which have the same status or a similar one or vertical – between different persons
from the status point of view (can be descendent – from the leader to the subordinate, or ascendant – from the
subordinate to the leader).
The leaders’ role, of influent persons, is that of being mediator between a group’s opinion and the collective
information spread by mass-media. Leaders are like linking parts between communication means and the team’s
opinion by: having authority among the group’s project, the relations settled with the leaded ones and by influencing
the behaviour of the group’s members. In receiving and sending messages, the group leader has a great influence,
the communication facilitated by him being more rapid and efficient. Inside the group will be received messages
from people with high, privileged, recognized status and messages from people with low statues are received very
difficult or not at all. The leaders represent crucial points of communication inside a group. Communication is an
important characteristic of groups, together with self-organization, conformity, unity, efficiency etc.

2. Group`s dynamic and leadership

Leadership is a part of management, is the ability of convincing the others to search to achieve defined targets,
gives coherence to a group and motivates it to achieve goals. Management activities such as: planning, organization
and taking decision are inactive germs until the leader releases the power of motivation in people and guides them to
certain targets. The leaders are present at the grounds of the organization (imagining that it has a pyramidal
structure), their essential role being that of direct human influence, inside group activity (the leader is related to
group’s activity; both the formal leader and the informal one are not to be imagined beside the direct action from
inside the group Iacob & Cismaru. (2002). Inteligent organization 10 themes of organizations management,
Bucureşti, Ed. Comunicare.ro. p.82. The activities are 80% management and 20% organization!
The managers are the ones who administrate the structures of the organization and, activities and people linked
to it; they are present especially in the intermediary levels of the organization; they interlace execution activities
with management acts. The activities are 80% organization and 20% management! The director of an organization
(the general manager) who is also the main shareholder has to be a leader, an entrepreneur. They often tend to
insufficiently lead while they excessively administrates. The managers are people who “do what they have to do”,
while the entrepreneurs are people who “do what they do, as they have to do”, that is efficiently.
A leader manager will lead using communication, visions, insuring the group’s direction of the action; an
administrator manager will lead by action and direct participation, by strict rules and with reduced vision. The
manager has to develop and to promote a politics based on a communication system that will allow him the
permanent adjustment of structures and of the organizational process at the conditions that are in permanent
changing. Modern management is based on communication – that is considered to be a vital component of any
organization; without a good communication relation between the manager and the subordinate there cannot be any
progress in the company. The manager is the person who applies management functions, according to the tasks,
competences and responsibilities given to the function he has Zaccaro S.J. (2007). Trait-based perspectives of
leadership, American Psychologist. 62, 6–16.
Managers have activities from the management functions: they word and apply development strategies, they
make the forecast and the plans; they organize and coordinate work; they insure a proper climate to performance –
that motivate the employees; they take care of the growing of the management’s act efficiency; they promote
communication with the employees, with the customers and with the suppliers; they develop strategic relations
Zaccaro S.J., Gulick L., & Khare V.P. (2008) Personality and leadership. In C. J. Hoyt, G. R. Goethals & D. R.
Forsyth (Eds.), Leadership at the crossroads (Vol 1) (pp. 13–29). Westport, CT: Praeger.
Managers are linked to some action verbs: to do, to develop, to interfere, to manage, to control, to correct etc.
Managers do not administrate balance states, but dynamic phenomena; they do not search to maintain an existent
situation if it is not profitable. Leaders are linked to the verb to change. It is one of theirs characteristics the fact that
they can identify the correct hierarchy priorities, that they can act efficiently in interdisciplinary domains having a
high degree of uncertainty, taking risks and finding solutions by uniting their collaborators efforts Hersey Paul,
Blanchard Ken, Johnson D. (2008) Management of Organizational Behavior: Leading Human Resources (9th ed.).
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.
810 Radu Răducan and Ramona Răducan / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 149 (2014) 808 – 812

The leader has to be seen as an assembly of attributes of the role the person has in a group, and at group’s level,
as an interaction process. Gary Johns (2008) Organizational behavior, Ed. Economică, Bucureşti, p.37, without
denying the importance of individual characteristics in getting a prestigious position, believes that other two factors
are determining the leading characteristics: “in reality, the leader exists according to the need of a group of people,
according to the nature of the situation where this group is trying to act”. The existence of a leader comes not from
personal qualities but from the nature of the group and the real situation he is part of.
Leadership solves the changes problem. One of the reasons for which leadership has become so important lately
is due to the fact that the business world has become more and more complex and volatile. Sudden technological
changes, the growth in international competition, the irregularity of markets, the overproduction in intensive
industries, the fragile in cartel oil, the manipulation of actions on stock markets, the demographic changes on
manpower markets are some of the factors that contribute to these changes. Fulfilling the same task as yesterday or
by 5% better do not represent a success formula on long term. Major changes are more and more important in order
to survive and to efficiently compete in this new environment. More changes require more leadership.
Management firstly deals with the complexity of the problems. Without a good management, complex
companies tend to become very difficult to handle and chaotic. A competitive management assures the order and
consistency necessary to some essential attributes of the organization such as quality and profitability of products,
by planning and settling the budget – choosing immediate objectives or of future targets, deciding the steps in order
to fulfil these targets and giving the resources in order to fulfil the planned plan.
The leader will conduct the organization by constructive changes, starting with creating an image (a vision) on
the future (the faraway future), by choosing a direction together with the implemented strategies for the necessary
changes in order to fulfil what they have imagined. The manager develops the capacity to fulfil his plan by
organizing production and personnel – creating an organizational structure and projecting new working posts; by
designating for those posts some qualified persons, by communicating the plan to those people, by devolving
responsibilities in order to fulfil the plan and by planning the system in order to implement it.
The leader’s equivalent activity is ranging the people. This means to communicate the direction of action to those
people which can form a team, which can understand the plan and which can be involved in its fulfilment.
The manager assures the fulfilment of the plan by controlling and solving problems – by confronting the
obtained results with the planed ones as far as details are concerned, both the formal and the informal ones, by
reporting, through meetings or other methods, by identifying errors; by planning and organizing problem solver. For
the leader, the vision fulfilment requires motivation, involvement and the employment - the continuation of ranging
people on the settled direction in spite of the major obstacles on the changing way, appealing to what seem to be of
most importance, without neglecting people necessities, their values and emotions. A careful examination of every
enunciated activity will lead to the qualities a leader must have, the settling of a direction being very important in
planning and in budget determination.
As far as leadership’s function is to produce changes, setting the direction of this change is a fundamental activity
for the leader. Choosing the direction is not always the same with the planning – not with the planning on long
term, even though people often confound with these terms. The planning is a management process, of deductive
nature, meant to lead to common results and not to the change.
Choosing a direction is an inductive action. The leaders gather a complete set of information and search for
ways, relations and links that can explain and forecast the evolution of some situations. Fixing the direction in
leadership does not lead to plans, but create images and strategies. Neither images nor strategies have to be very
innovative. Efficient images about business are usually common and consist of well known ideas. The combination
or the shaping of the idea may be new.

3. Concept and methodology

The characteristics of a leader – necessary and efficient in a group or in a situation can be totally different of
another leader, in a different environment. A person, who has real leader qualities, as an employee in a strong
organization, will prove reduced ability in a less structured organization, a more democratic one. A person who
proves to be liable in a situation that requires deliberation and planning can be less liable in a situation that requires
immediate action. Almost each member of a group can become a leader as far as he is fit for the position. Different
 Radu Răducan and Ramona Răducan / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 149 (2014) 808 – 812 811

situations give the opportunity to different people to advance. If the situations need different persons for the leading
position, means that the same person in different situations is going to have different power and efficiency levels.
The situations study allows controlling them. If leader’s stability in behavior is a leading characteristic, changing
the behavior style in according situations is not a less important indicator of the leading capacity. If we want to
realize the capacity or the incapacity to lead, we have to study the situations in relation to behaviour’s relations. This
is why it is usually required to a young person, in order to become a boss to leave his community of origin. Even if
he has failed in certain circumstances, the person has learned certain types of situations. If he finds himself again in
similar situations, he will manage to control them. This points out that a person capable to lead in certain situations
will manage to lead in similar situations, and the use of the same leading techniques in different situations where
that technique is not fit, will be a failure.
The possibility to control the situation is the capacity to sense the similarities and the differences of the present
situation in other situations. The more experience a leader has, the less he risks to lose his authority and his prestige,
if he keeps his mobility and his mental ability Schultz D.P., Sydney E., (2010) Psychology and work today: an
introduction to industrial and organizational psychology. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall. p. 171.
A complete lay-out for the situation’s research presumes the word “situation” with at least four categories of
determinants of leader’s behavior: the structure of interpersonal relations inside the group, group’s categories, total
culture’s characteristics where the group exists from where the group members are and the task the group has to
fulfil Bland Michel (1998). Communicating Out Of a Crisis, MacMillan, pp. 127-129. The environments from
where the group members come from, as well as the environment where the group acts will hall-mark its member’s
behavior. Habits, attitudes, acting ways and material culture that influence the person, determine its behavior in
different circumstances. The dynamic of group interactions, especially when the group confronts new tasks, is
determined by the environment characteristics from where his members come from. The situation plays an important
part while determining the leading type, without having the exclusiveness of type determination. It is difficult to
settle a standard of situations where a person can become a leader, as it is difficult to settle a type of standard
personality for the leader. A difference between a democratic leader and an authoritarian one is described in Table 1:
Table 1. Result interpretation
Differentiation criteria Democrat leader Authoritarian leader
Behavior Unconventional Conventional, according to existing norms
Powerful correlation between the future Weak correlation between objectives and the leading
Actions coordination
vision and the motivation to lead motivation
Personal power and specific power to the position the
Personal power, based on experience, person has inside the leading system (based on positive
The source of power
respect and admiration and negative motivation, on fear, experience and
sometimes sympathy from his counterpart)
The relation between leader Exemplary, a good leading in any Constraints the subordinates to sympathize with his vision
and subordinate situation

Efficient leaders have to know well the personnel in order to change their abilities and to better act. The
subordinates, either like individual either like a group, adopt their own behavior types or their own types of action,
such as norms, habits etc. A leader can use a certain style for a group and has to differently behave from one
individual to another one, because they have different maturity levels Van Wormer K., Besthorn F.H. & Keefe T.
(2007). Human Behavior and the Social Environment: Macro Level: Groups, Communities, and Organizations. US:
Oxford University Press.
The leadership in the mirror is a new concept based on personal observations that starts from a study done
during 10 years upon 50 persons initially subordinates, in leading positions nowadays. We have grouped the 50

‚
persons in 2 subordinates’ categories:
The up-and-coming subordinates, inventive, difficult to lead, with managing abilities, with initiative, with
personal approach in solving the tasks, generally having problems in the relation with the hierarchic leaders most of

‚
them “democratic leaders”;
The Yes-man subordinates, methodic, punctual, scrupulous, excellent executants – fulfilling exactly the
dispositions of the hierarchic leaders generally “authoritarian leaders”.
Same subjects in different positions (leaders and performers) were applied to test batteries on leadership styles
(Questionnaire "Organizational climate" Questionnaire "Analysis of leadership styles" Questionnaire "Styles
812 Radu Răducan and Ramona Răducan / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 149 (2014) 808 – 812

influence" and "Leadership Style Survay ") and have been seen and appreciated in the performance of tasks in the
same view. Following this research we obtained the following results:
Table 2. Leadership in the mirror
Initial situation: subordinated leaded by a leader: Actual situation: who became leaders
authoritarians democratic authoritarians democratic
% % % %
Up and coming - 50 6 44
Yes-man 50 - 46 4

Once in leading positions in their departments, the type of leader has been different. 88% from the first category
and 8% from the second category have become “democratic leaders”, while 12% from the first category and 92%
from the second category have become “authoritarian leaders”. Both groups preferred to work with subordinates that
seemed to their initial profile, having relational problems when meeting personalities from the other category. We
pointed that the leading style of new leaders has been majorly influenced by the ones who initially leaded. An
organization that wants to grow up new leaders is better to hire managers according to the leadership that wants
to implement.

4. Conclusions

Most organizations need to develop the leadership capacity. Successful organizations do not wait for the leaders
to form themselves in time. Successful organizations search for leaders and expose them to atypical situations that
are meant to develop this potential. Helped by a careful attention, education and correct encouragement, more
persons can be leaders inside organizations.
While improving the leader capacity of some employees, organizations do not have to forget that a strong
leadership, joined by a weak management it is not efficient, sometimes being even worse than the opposite. The true
performance is represented by combining a strong leadership with a strong management and, eventually their
reciprocal compensation. Not anyone can be in the same time a good leader and a good manager. Some persons
have the capacity to become excellent managers, but not powerful leaders. Others have good potential for being
leaders, but have difficulties in becoming efficient managers. Visionary organizations consider as valuable both
categories and make great efforts to join them.
When people have to be trained for leading positions, a lot of companies ignore the recent specialty literature that
explains why people cannot be very good managers and authentic leaders. When an organization understands the
fundamental differences between leadership and management, this can being to train people for leading positions by
taking into consideration both aspects.
It is a big difference between the manager and the leader. The first faces complexity while the second one faces
changes, grouping characteristic activities of management and leadership. Each action system implies taking the
decision about what has to be done, creating relations between people, creating relations that can lead to the
fulfilment of a common plan, and then the essay to assure that these people do what they have to do. Everyone
fulfils these three tasks in a different manner.

References

Bland, M. (1998). Communicating Out Of a Crisis. MacMillan.

Hersey, P.; Blanchard, K., Johnson, D. (2008). Management of Organizational Behavior: Leading Human Resources (9th ed.). Upper Saddle
River, NJ: Pearson Education.
Iacob, D., Cismaru, D., M. (2002). Inteligent organization 10 themes of organizations management. Bucureşti. Ed. Comunicare.
Johns, G. (1998). Organizational behavior. Ed. Economică. Bucureşti.
Schultz, S., E., (2010). Psychology and work today: an introduction to industrial and organizational psychology (10th ed. ed.). Upper Saddle
River, N.J.: Prentice Hall. p. 171.
Van Wormer, K., S., Besthorn, F., H., Keefe, T. (2007). Human Behavior and the Social Environment: Macro Level: Groups, Communities, and
Organizations. US: Oxford University Press
Zaccaro, S., J. (2007). Trait-based perspectives of leadership, American Psychologist, 62, 6–16.
Zaccaro, S., J., Gulick, L., M., V., & Khare, V., P. (2008). Personality and leadership. In C. J. Hoyt, G. R. Goethals & D. R. Forsyth (Eds.),
Leadership at the crossroads (Vol 1) (pp. 13–29). Westport, CT: Praeger.