Leadership and management



Although “Managing” and “leading” are usually used in the same context, they have some differences in terms of:

·         Attitudes towards goals: Leaders are more committed to objectives, due to that the play a more active role in the process of achieving different goals. Managers on the other hand tend to assume a more passive attitude (observers).

·         Conception of work:  Managers develop a greater risk aversion than leaders, combining ideas, resources, and people to balance the processes. Leaders look for fresh scenarios and solutions to different problems.

·         Relationships with others: leaders tend to create closer relations among team workers while managers tend to avoid it.

In addition to that it’s important to have in mind that the management process reduces the sense of uncertainty and develops stability, allowing the situations to keep as they are. (Status quo) While leading process encourage changes and new approaches that create uncertainty. Leaders are more likely to motivate people with their own actions, influencing them towards positive changes.

Leading and managing are key components when it comes to the developing of healthy organizations; they are needed to be implemented in joint to face different situations and problems keeping previously traced paths. In addition to that is very important to set mission, vision and values that allow the goal achievement and control of the organization members.

Some behavioral theories of leaders classified these one in categories as: Authoritarian, Consultative, Democratic and Laizzes faire.

New research on leadership evidence three kinds of leaders:

·         Transformational leaders: leaders who inspire followers to achieve highly settled goals.

·         Charismatic leaders: Those who use their talents in different scenarios to have great impacts on the people that surround them.

·         Authentic leaders: Those who develop a sense of altruism and operate at high levels of influence over people.

Qualities of Leaders



Question:

Do you (or would you want to) work in an autocratic, democratic, or consultative work environment? What might be the advantages and disadvantages of each?

I would prefer to work in a consultative organization, due to the fact that in involves everyone that is performing the task or is affected by it; taking into account their ideas and proposals and keeping them posted of any changes or situations. This environment applies to the environment of few partners developing projects, son there are pretty much at the same level of involvement and influence among the decisions. The disadvantages of a consultative environment is that the decision making process can get really tedious and complex, due to the fact that is controlled by everyone performing or affected by the decision and making a deal can be pretty exhausting.

The Authoritarian work environment represents a lot of disadvantages for the staff and lot of advantages for the manager. Due to the fact that this last one, are conceived with too much power and authority for decision making, they do not consult workers to any matter, staff is not allowed to give any opinion and are expected just to “obey orders”.

Democratic scenarios are in some ways similar to the consultative one; they present a participative style, keeping staff aware of things that can affect them and sharing decision making. The difference is that managers have more power than in the consultative environment.

Bibliography:

Video retreived from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhxINyIZ454 

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Information retreived from:http://interactiva.eafit.edu.co/ei/