 Distinguishing Leadership and Management Activities Leadership and Management. What's the difference? Supervisors and managers need to carry out activities in five major functions to ensure that departmental goals are accomplished on a consistent basis. The functions overlap and often occur at the same time, but each requires distinct skills and each contributes in its own way to reaching goals. Four of the functions, plan, organize, staff, and control are primarily related to accomplishing goals by carrying out necessary administrative, coordinating, and technical tasks. These are usually referred to as management activities. The supervisor or manager engages in leadership activities when he or she influences others to accomplish organizational goals. Leadership involves interacting with others in a way that motivates them to carry out goal-related activities. Typical leadership activities for a supervisor or manager are getting his or her team together to discuss the next month's goals, praising an employee for work well done, giving a pep talk to help the team get through a period of heavy workload, coaching an employee who is performing below standard, asking for employee input into solving a departmental problem, encouraging a reluctant but capable employee to accept a challenging assignment. All of these activities are attempts to influence the behavior of an individual or team to accomplish a goal. What's the difference? Leadership influencing. Establishing direction, goals, and strategies for change. Aligning people with goals, communicating and gaining support for the goals. Motivating and inspiring people to work towards goals and to overcome obstacles. Getting input and giving feedback. Management, administrating, planning and budgeting to carry out the goals. Organizing the work and assigning staff to implement it. Monitoring results and solving problems encountered in ongoing activities. You have completed this learning activity on distinguishing leadership and management activities.