"Leadership And Management"

Leadership is about inspiring others and doing the right thing. Leaders make change happen, but their values remain steady and unchanging. Most leaders not only have a long-term perspective on goals, but they also have innovative ways of achieving their goals. 

What are the qualities of good leaders? What makes them successful? 
1- Successful leaders are able to influence others & inspire a workforce, a team, or a nation to achieve goals.
2- Leaders can see beyond themselves and beyond the task at hand to look at achieving long-term goals by utilizing their strengths combined with the strengths of others. 
3- Effective leaders are able to manage relationships with others and create positive outcomes. 
4- Leaders learn from failure and have a steadfastness of purpose that keeps them focused on a goal or objective in spite of near term setbacks or adverse conditions. 
5- Leaders are able to energize those around them in order to create desired results without compromising their ethical standards.

LEADERSHIP VERSUS MANAGEMENT

"Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things". —Peter F. Drucker

Leaders may be managers, but not all managers are leaders. So just what are the differences?
While managers tend to have their eyes on the bottom line, leaders are more often looking toward the horizon, trying to find new opportunities for growth and development. Managers are often responsible for executing the task at hand, not thinking of future goals. Managers are responsible for maintaining, but leaders look to innovate.Managers may involve employees in their activities, but often on a “need to know” basis while Leaders work to inspire those around them by trying to help others gain personal growth and development from their activities and by turning weaknesses into strengths. Companies that have “leader-managers” throughout the corporate hierarchy are the most successful.

ROLES OF MANAGERS 
Management is often expressed as the process of achieving an organization’s objectives through guiding development, maintenance, and allocating resources. The primary roles of managers are planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. 
1- Planning

"The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet." —Theodore M. Hesburgh 

Planning is the process of determining a course of action for future conditions and events with the goal of achieving the company’s objectives. Effective planning is necessary for any business or organization that wants to avoid costly mistakes. There are 4 types of planning that are associated with management: strategic, tactical, operational, and contingency planning. 
- Strategic planning involves creating long-range goals and determining the resources required for achieving these goals. Strategic planning is the most far-reaching level of planning and involves plans with time frames from 1 to 5 years. Essential to the notion of strategic planning is that it involves an assessment and consideration of the organization’s external environment, and that the organization is adaptive to these outside, noncontrollable variables, adjusting and possibly redirecting its strategy to account for this changing environment.- Tactical planning denotes the implementation of the activities defined by the strategic plans. Generally, tactical planning involves shorter-range plans with time frames of less than one year.
Operational planning involves the creation of specific methods, standards, and procedures for different functional areas of an organization. In addition, the organization chooses specific work targets and assigns employees to teams to carry out plans. 
- Contingency planning involves the creation of alternative courses of action for unusual or crisis situations. For example, realizing the impact of terrorism on businesses in the wake of September 11, 2001, many companies have developed contingency plans to respond to potential terrorism events.
2- Organizing
This management role involves blending human and capital resources in a formal structure. The manager will divide and classify work by determining which specific tasks need to be carried out in order to accomplish a set of objectives. 
3- Leading 

The goal of leading is to guide and motivate employees in order to accomplish organizational objectives. This role involves explaining procedures, issuing directives, and ensuring that any mistakes are corrected. 
4- Controlling
Controlling allows a manager to measure how closely an organization is adhering to its set goals. It is also a process that provides feedback for future planning.

LEADERSHIP STYLES 
"Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it." —Dwight D. Eisenhower

The predominant leadership styles—autocratic, democratic, and laissez-faire—have many variations. We can compare and contrast the effectiveness of each of these styles as it affects employee performance.

Autocratic Leadership
This style is both directive and controlling. The leader will make all decisions without consulting employees and will also dictate employee roles. The autocratic style of leadership limits employee freedom of expression and participation in the decision-making process. It may result in alienating employees from leadership and will not serve to create trust between managers and subordinates. Further, creative minds cannot flourish under autocratic leadership. Autocratic leadership may best be used when companies are managing less experienced employees.

Democratic Leadership
This style is centered on employee participation and involves decision making by consensus and consultation. This often leads to empowerment of employees because it gives them a sense of responsibility for the decisions made by management. This can also be a very effective form of management when employees offer a different perspective than the manager. Democratic leadership may best be used when working with highly skilled and experienced employees. One of the downsides of democratic leadership is that it may lead to endless meetings and therefore create frustration among employees if used for every decision made by a company. Democratic leadership is not a good idea in situations when the business is facing a crisis situation such as bankruptcy. 

Laissez-Faire Leadership
"Delegating work works, provided the one delegating works, too." —Robert Half
This form of leadership requires extensive communication by management with employees. It is the style that makes employees responsible for most of the decisions that are made, and in which they are minimally supervised. Employees are responsible for motivating and managing themselves on a daily basis under this leadership style. Laissez-faire leadership may best be used when employees are educated, knowledgeable, and self-motivated. Laissez-faire leadership is not a good idea in situations where employees feel insecure about the manager’s lack of availability or the manager is using the employees to cover for his or her inability to carry out his or her own work. This type of situation can create resentment and result in an unhealthy work environment. 

Transformational and Transactional Leadership
Transformational Leadership. Leaders who have a clear vision and are able to articulate it effectively to others often characterize this style of leadership. Transformational leaders look beyond themselves in order to work for the greater good of everyone. This type of leader will bring others into the decision-making process and will allow those around them opportunity to learn and grow as individuals. They seek out different perspectives when trying to solve a problem and are able to instill pride into those who work under them. Transformational leaders spend time coaching their employees and learning from them as well.
Transactional Leadership. This style is characterized by centralized control over employees. The transactional leader will control outcomes and strive for behavioral compliance. Employees under a transactional leader are motivated by the transactional leader’s praise, reward, and promise. They may also be corrected by the leader’s negative feedback, threats, or disciplinary action.

"The most effective leadership style is using a combination of styles." 

Leaders should know when it is best to be autocratic and when to be democratic. They can also be transformational and transactional at the same time; these are not mutually exclusive styles and in fact can complement one another extremely well.

LEADERSHIP AND MOTIVATION 
- An important role for a leader is motivating employees to do the best job possible. There are many ways a leader can motivate employees, and many of them do not require additional monetary compensation.

- Sometimes motivation is brought about through creative means. 

- Open communication is also a key to motivating employees. 
- When employees feel that they will be listened to and managers openly discuss matters with employees, a trusting relationship is created. 
- Another method to motivate is to ensure that employees are matched up with the right job. It is the leader’s job to learn what employees’ abilities and preferences are and match them accordingly to tasks that utilize their skills and when possible match with their preferences.
- If a leader is a good role model, showing enthusiasm for his or her work and pride in the company, this will positively affect employee motivation.