Leadership and Management Essay

Every i contends. We manage our finances, time, cargoners, and relationships. We tend not to think of these activities as managing or of ourselves as cosmos managers. Nevertheless, they be. These examples of managing or being managers atomic number 18 relatively simple and straightforward, even though we whitethorn find some of them fraught with difficulty. It is when the imaginations of managing or being a manager are applied to organizations that complexity increasesalmost always exponentially. At this point it becomes necessary to study and fancy the theoretical bases of concern. The practice of management and the classical enunciation of management principles can be traced to the 19th century.The teaching of management as an academic discipline based on a body of knowledge that can be taught is a recent victimization and is generally attri onlyed to the behave of Peter F. Drucker in the latter half of the twentieth century. That body of knowledge is taught in graduate schools of business and in programs that formulate managers of public health de realmments, programs, and health services organizations, such as hospitals, clinics, and long-run care facilities. This chapter provides a basic introduction to management hypothesis and conundrum solving, and concludes with a brief discussion of negotiation and alternative dispute resolution.Managers are persons who are formally appointed to positions of authority in organizations. They enable others to do their do and are accountable to a higher authority for constitute results. Primarily, the differences between levels of managers are the degree of authority and the scope of their accountability for work results. Line managers manage people and things staff managers, such as the serviceman resources department and the fiscal office, support the work of line managers.Management Functions and decisiveness Making The five management functions of planning, organizing, controlling, directing, and st affing are brought to life and connected by last making, which is itself a subset of the essential process for managers that is known as riddle solving. Little that managers at all levels in an organization do travel outside the purview of the five management functions. Management theorists and practitioners may get one or two of the five functions as most burning(prenominal), but this is not innate(p)e out normatively. When one considers the full range of what managers do (or should do) as they perform their work, concentrating on a few to the exclusion or downslope of the others willing invariably cause problems for the organization. Decision making is an inherent practise of managers, and they make decisions within and among the five management functions.Decision making is part of the process of problem solving, which withal includes problem analysis. Performance of the management functions and the decision making of problem solving should be evaluated using explicit an d measurable criteria. In addition to engaging in the five management functions, managers essential utilize specific skills, play various cases, and evidence a emergence of competencies.Managing and Leading Some theorists and academicians distinguish managers and leading, based on the view that managing is more(prenominal) caretaking and maintaining status quo (transactional) whereas leading is more visionary and dynamic (transformational). That distinction may be more important pedagogically than in practical application, however, curiously at the organizations operating level. Senior managers must learn trenchant current organizational activities and that an organizations future is envisioned. utilize this vision, the organization can be transformed as needed.As they work to achieve organizational objectives, managers use adept, conceptual, and interpersonal skills. These skills are applied in various proportions, depending on the managers task and level in the organiz ational hierarchy. Usually, senior managers make greater use of conceptual skills, whereas middle- and insertion level managers use a more even mix of the three.The question of Henry Mintzberg found that managers have divers(prenominal) roles, the general categories of which include interpersonal, informational, and decisional. each may be segmented. For example, the interpersonal role includes figurehead and influencer, informational includes monitor and spokesperson, and the decisional role includes entrepreneur and negotiator. Successful managers integrate these various roles and are likely to hold in them without making a clear distinction.Another way to understand managers work is to identify their competencies, few of which are found in the categorizations discussed earlier. Conceptual, technical managerial/clinical, interpersonal/collaborative, political, commercial, and governance competencies are used in different proportions by managers at various levels of the organi zation.Most theories view leading as grounded in one or more of the following three perspectives leading as a process or relationship, leaders as a combination of traits or personality characteristics, or leadership as genuine behaviors or, as they are more commonly referred to, leadership skills. In to the highest degree all of the more dominant theories there exist the notions that, at to the lowest degree to some degree, leadership is a process that involves influence with a radical of people toward the realization of goals. I will say on the drift end that, in my opinion, leadership is a dynamic and complex process, and that very much of what is written these days tends to over-simplify this process. My goal here is to provide an overview that keeps things simple, without crossing into over-simplification, and for the most part refraining from any critiquing of the various theories. I will leave that to my chum bloggers for now. Trait theoryThis surmise postulates tha t people are either born or not born with the qualities that predispose them to success in leadership roles. That is, that certain contagious qualities, such as personality and cognitive ability, are what underlie effective leadership. There have been hundreds of studies to determine the most important leadership traits, and while there is always going to be some disagreement, intelligence, sociability, and drive (aka determination) are consistently cited as key qualities.Skills Theory This surmisal states that learned knowledge and acquired skills/abilities are significant factors in the practice of effective leadership. Skills conjecture by no means disavows the connection between inherited traits and the capacity to be an effective leader it simply argues that learned skills, a developed behavior, and acquired knowledge, are the real keys to leadership performance. It is of course the belief that skills theory is true that warrants all the effort and resources devoted to lea dership training and informationSituational Theory This theory suggests that different situations require different ardors of leadership. That is, to be effective in leadership requires the ability to adapt or adjust ones style to the circumstances of the situation. The primary factors that determine how to adapt are an assessment of the competence and commitment of a leaders followers. The assessment of these factors determines if a leader should use a more directive or supportive style.Contingency Theory This theory states that a leaders effectiveness is contingent on how well the leaders style matches a specific setting or situation. And how, you may ask, is this different from situational theory? In situational the focus is on adapting to the situation, whereas contingency states that effective leadership depends on the degree of fit between a leaders qualities and style and that of a specific situation or context.Path-Goal Theory This theory is about(predicate) how leaders motivate followers to accomplish identified objectives. It postulates that effective leaders have the ability to improve the motivation of followers by explicate the paths and removing obstacles to high performance and desired objectives. The underlying beliefs of path-goal theory (grounded in expectation theory) are that people will be more focused and cause if they believe they are capable of high performance, believe their effort will result in desired outcomes, and believe their work is worthwhile.Transformational Theory This theory states that leadership is the process by which a person engages with others and is able to seduce a connection that results in increased motivation and morality in both followers and leaders. It is often likened to the theory of charismatic leadership that espouses that leaders with certain qualities, such as confidence, extroversion, and clearly stated values, are take up able to motivate followers. The key in transformational leadership is for the leader to be attentive to the needs and motives of followers in an attempt to help them give way their maximum potential. In addition, transformational leadership typically describes how leaders can initiate, develop, and accomplish important changes in an organization. This theory is often discussed in contrast with transactional leadership.Transactional Theory This is a theory that focuses on the exchanges that take adjust between leaders and followers. It is based in the notion that a leaders origin is to create structures that make it abundantly clear what is expected of his/her followers and also the consequences (i.e. rewards and punishments) for meeting or not meeting these expectations. This theory is often likened to the concept and practice of management and continues to be an extremely common component of many leadership models and organizational structures.Servant Leadership Theory This conceptualization of leadership reflects a philosophy that leaders should be servants first. It suggests that leaders must place the needs of followers, customers, and the community ahead of their own interests in order to be effective. The idea of servant leadership has a significant amount of popularity within leadership circles but it is difficult to describe it as a theory inasmuch as a set of beliefs and values that leaders are promote to embrace.