Balancing Leadership and Management Strategies
Due to the popularity of diverse managerial strategies, the importance of leadership was often underestimated within the recent decades. Renewed interest in the set of personal qualities required for becoming an effective manager was caused by the intense competition at the market. Present day managers come to realize that leadership and management are complementary and need to be combined in the company’s strategies for achieving the organizational success.
Management dominating over leadership
The sphere of human resource management has got its peculiarities, and the skills required for effective management cannot be associated with the technical skills of organizing the working process. Robbins and Judge (2007) noted that “In today’s increasingly competitive and demanding workplace, managers can’t succeed on their technical skills alone. They also have to have good people skills” (p. 5).
Giving preference to management and underestimating the importance of leadership, a manager reduces one’s own and company’s chances for success. For example, in one trading company, a young inexperienced manager trying to gain authority among the senior management decided to start one’s activity from inducing the employees to fill in the detailed reports at the end of every working day devoting 1-2 hours to paper work.
On the one hand, this innovation was met at dagger points by employees causing their dissatisfaction and decreasing their commitment to the department mission. On the other hand, a significant part of the working day was wasted on paper work depriving the specialists of opportunities to devote it to communication with customers and polishing up their professional skills. It resulted in reduction of the department sales attracting the attention of the senior management.
The main lesson learned from this situation is that leadership is required for becoming an effective manager and is rather a process than a position. Filling the vacancy of a manager is insufficient for becoming a successful leader and making a contribution to the company’s progress.
The future learning objectives presuppose enhancing the manager’s awareness of the ways for establishing the rapport with employees on gradual step-by-step basis. Coupling the technical managerial skills with the appropriate personal qualities, an individual will be able to make progress.
Leadership dominating over management
One should not idealize the leadership-focused approach to solving the management problems. Hughes et al. (2006) admitted that “Most US corporations today, for example, are overmanaged and underled, but strong leadership with weak management is no better” (p. 41). The formal and technical sides of the management issues are not be neglected as well.
Lack of organizational efforts and accountability in a company cannot be compensated by the atmosphere of mutual trust, commitment to a strong leader and employees’ involvement in decision-making. For example, in a small pizzeria most of the workers were the members of one big family. All the working relationships were based on mutual trust and devotion to the leader, the head of the family.
Though discipline problems never occurred in the firm due to the employees’ commitment to the company’s mission, lack of technical management and accountability resulted in chaos within the organization. When it was necessary to order goods, the manager had problems with calculating the remaining products, while the employees shifted the responsibility on others. After a particular case when the firm sustained losses due to lack of products necessary for preparing pizza, the manager decided to reorganize the company.
The main lesson learned from the case is that leadership and employees’ commitment to the company’s mission are insufficient for effective management and success of the firm. No matter how excellent the interpersonal relations between the employees and their manager might be, the technical side of enhancing the effectiveness of the working process is not less significant. Future learning objectives need to be focused on mastering the skills of creating the effective working environment, distributing forces and responsibilities.
Balancing management and leadership
Leadership and management are equally important for achieving the organizational success, none of the components can be substituted or compensated by another one. As it was cited in Hughes et al. (2006), Kotter defined different spheres of these strategies describing “management in terms of coping with complexity, and leadership in terms of coping with change” (p. 41).
Effective management is possible only on the condition of balancing leadership and management strategies. For example, if a manager of a trading company should be able not only to adapt one’s strategies to the existing situation but to transform them according to the occurring changes as well.
In a situation when a new product is released, an effective manager not only explains the importance of promoting it but discusses the strategies with employees motivating them. If the product appears to be of low quality or certain side effects are observed, a good manager will take the responsibility and stop the promotion campaign, preventing possible litigation liability and revenue losses in future.
The experience of balancing the management and leadership should be adopted by other companies and implemented in their strategies. Future learning objectives presuppose deepening of knowledge of complex approach to management strategies.
Leadership and management should become the complementary components of the company’s strategies. Proper balance between the management and leadership is required for achieving the organizational success.
Reference List
Hughes, R., Ginnett R., Curphy G. (2006). Leadership: Enhancing the lessons of experience (5th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin
Robbins, S. P. and Judge, T. A. (2007). Organizational behavior. (12th ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall Press.