Monday, March 18, 2013

Leadership and Management

Leadership and management; committees and teams.




















Maija said...

Wow. Yes.
Never thought of the 'machine' principle before. That's totally inspired.

Jim said...

Makes a lot of sense. The managers build a machine to take all the human factors out of it... but in reality, they need leaders within the machine to make it work. Which leads to the next question, in my mind... How do you get the right people into the right positions? A good manager will be a crappy leader, but often early supervisory positions really require leadership. Until the level where the machine needs managers to run it... Of course, the machine is also inherently built to perpetuate itself, so often it stymies leaders and advances managers. Especially since management results are lots more measurable and observable. Leadership gets the job done right -- but management produces the tally marks that show that it got done.

OK -- I think I'm spinning around a bit here... There's something there, not sure if I hit it.

Neil Bednar said...

Excellent post.

Unknown said...

Ahahaha. You silly managers. Wait, that describes me?!

Mac said...

But, management is a vital part of the triangle of organization - personnel, resources and purpose. Managers maintain the structure, define the strategies and provide the resources for the leaders who then make the plans, train the troops and carry out the missions. There are two obvious problems with this 'separation of powers': system resist maintenance and the roles of managers and leaders are blurred, not only organizationally but personally.

Managers resist input from leaders about needed organizational change because it is their nature and the nature of organizations to be resist change and maintain existing boundaries. Leaders resist being managed because "no plan survives contact with the enemy."

It is a condom, no?

Josh Kruschke said...

Managment and Leadership are not mutualy exclusive skill sets. You need both to accomplish anything. A manager that can't inspirer those under them to acomplish a goal gets little done. And a Leader with out a plan wastes a lot of time.

The two best resources I've found are the One minute manager series and the Fifth Descipline. Both set up a system you can lead from, but come at the problem from two different points of view.

Anonymous said...

Ever read J.B. Priestley's "The Grey Ones"?

Managerial class = evil changelings serving the cause of diminishing the soul of mankind.


Anonymous said...

Wow, just came across eichmann and amtssprache.

"I followed the policy. It's not my fault."


Rob Lyman said...

There was an incident in CA a while back where a suicidal stood in neck deep water while police and fire looked on, until eventually hypothermia got him.

I'm not sure exactly how I would have handled the situation--people suggesting sending a couple of cops into neck-deep water to "overpower" him have apparently never been in neck-deep water themselves--but the press release from the FD was classic.

They said they couldn't save him because their P&P didn't allow it. No, really. Apparently somebody had written out a policy on neck-deep water. Or, more likely, they couldn't think of anything else to say.

Unknown said...

I had an opportunity to watch managers for some time. In my opinion they tend to look around them as if every situation is opportunity to manage. Professional deformation, probably. Trying to treat people that way beyond their professional field backfires a great deal.

Not to mention I will follow a real leader but never a manager. I don't like people who try to treat me as an object and don't get along with them. :)

Alex ken said...

The Early Trait Theories of Leadership attempted to identify what physical attributes, personality characteristics, and abilities distinguished leaders from others.

Leadership in the UK