MGT 3200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 31: Great Man Theory, Theory X And Theory Y, Trait Theory
Document Summary
Leadership is the art of influencing individual or group activities toward achievement of organizational goals. Leadership is about getting people to assist you willingly and harmoniously in accomplishing organizational goals. Being a great leader does not necessarily make you a great manager because leadership is only one function of management. However, having leadership ability will make you a better manager because through leadership employees become motivated and they start assisting you in carrying out your other management functions. Leadership is based upon informal authority (persuasion-personal sources of power) and supervision relies on formal authority (position power). When a manager leads, the subordinate complies with the manager"s request because they want to. On the other hand, when the manager supervises, the subordinate complies with the manager"s request because they have to (i. e. , because the manager is the boss). Thus, leadership is based upon voluntary rather than forced compliance.
