Informal leadership often develops as the result of job experience, special competencies, or personal characteristics. Informal leaders frequently have excellent communication skills and are the nurses others go to for counseling. Informal leaders have a powerful influence in any work group. If the informal leader influences the other workers to perform more effectively, then the leader is acting in support of the organization's purposes. Management and leadership are often thought of as synonymous, but leadership is a broader concept than management.
Management is a special kind of leadership in which achieving organizational goals is paramount.
Managers carry out operations and maintain the status quo by setting goals and objectives consistent with the mission of the organization, managing human resources, and providing performance feedback. The best managers are also effective leaders, although there are many managers whose expertise is in managing what currently exists rather than envisioning the future. A danger for any profession or business is that it will produce an abundance of managers and not enough leaders. When a leadership gap exists, the profession deteriorates because it cannot visualize a new and different future and make the changes that turn a new vision into a reality. What nursing needs today and for the future is leaders who have the curiosity, imagination, and innovative thinking to build new models of care and caregiving.