Conceptualisation of management and leadership

Abstract

The divide in the conceptualisation of the terms “management” and “leadership” is not clear. The purpose of the study on which this article is based was to explore the concepts of management and leadership. The synthesis review also applied content analysis, identifying the tasks constituting management and leadership respectively.

The findings of the literature review demonstrated that the concepts of management and leadership are intertwined. The word “management” has French and Italian roots, while the word “leadership” has Greek and Latin roots. Essentially, though, these words are synonymous. All of the tasks fall within the boundaries of management, while leadership tasks overlap with management. Unlike management, leadership has no distinct task that falls exclusively within its boundary.

Implications of the findings of this study include debate regarding how practising managers can know what is expected of them if the literature is unclear on the distinction between these concepts.