Unit 1 Activity 4: Blog Post 2

Assigned leaders are individuals who have been placed in a formal leadership role within a group or organization and are given power and authority because of their position (Northouse, 2016, p. 8). Emergent leaders are individuals who naturally become leaders because of the way the members of the group regard or interact with them (Northouse, 2016, p. 8).

Last May, a group of my friends and I decided to take a road trip to Kelowna for the long weekend. There were eight of us and while we decided on our trip early on, there was not much movement in terms of planning for a long time. Eventually, I started to take charge by looking up hotel availability and organizing rides. Once I started, others in the group also started to take on responsibilities such as winery bookings and planning activities. However, I had somehow emerged as the leader because my friends started coming to me to ask for what responsibilities they should take on and going over details with me before confirming with restaurants and wineries. Because of my past experience with trip planning and perhaps what my friends saw as my natural ability to organize and schedule, they turned to me as the “leader” for our weekend trip.

This leads to the next point – management versus leadership. After reading about the differences between the two in Northouse’s book, I am hesitant to say that I emerged as a leader rather than as a manager in the situation I mentioned above. Northouse (2016) comments that leadership and management are similar in many ways in terms of interactions with people, influence, and goal attainment (p. 13). However, they also differ in the sense that management has more involvement in planning, organizing, controlling, and problem solving while leadership focuses on creating a vision, connecting members, and motivating followers (Northouse, 2016, p. 14). Management targets efficiency and effectiveness while leadership centers around group interaction and motivation.

Personally, I feel that leadership is imperative for an organization to prosper long term. Management is necessary for an organization or group to function and exist, but for the organization to truly flourish, there needs to be a driving force that inspires and motivates members to grow and develop positively and continuously.

My question is: Can an individual be an assigned leader and an emergent leader? And if so, is it more effective to be an assigned leader or an emergent leader first? 

References:

Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.