668 Blog for Week of 6/21/2010

How can management be innovative?

Management are those who follow vision, mission statements and policy and procedures. They are those who follow what upper leadership has established for them. To answer the question, yes, management can be innovative, but only to their own processes. They can further advance their own internal flow and procedures, but management itself can no longer evolve from the past 20-30 years. It is meant to crack the whip on the lower tiered employees and serve as a middle tier that keeps the vision and mission of the upper 'management's' goals.

Does it then become leadership?

In (Northouse, 2003) we learned that a person, let's assume it's a manager can have a trait of a leader or possess the process of a leader. I believe that a person can show signs of being a leader, but when put to the test they may fail at becoming the leader. These managers may also have assigned leadership roles, or emergent leadership roles. Assigned in my opinion are those who are the 'managers' out there. They are assigned a team to lead or a task to complete. (Not real leaders) Emergent leaders are those positions that emerge over time, and is not assigned by position. Unfortunately there's an organizational hierarchy. A person must go through that and be put to the test prior to being a proclaimed 'leader'. Managers CAN become leaders, or are already leaders of their own group(s). Not all managers though will become leaders. Those people may not possess the traits of being a true leader. They are may only be good at what they do on a micro level and may not be too good with leading a diverse group of people.

Where do the lines intersect between management and leadership?

It says that Management produces order and consistency while Leadership produces change and movement. I believe that anything a manager can do a leader can do, but not all managers can perform leadership roles.

For example, Leaders can plan and budget, organize and staff, control and problem solve, all characteristics that Management possesses (Source: Adapted from A Force for Change: How Leadership Differs From Management Kotter 1990) Management meanwhile can not really establish direction (longer term than their immediate team), Align people (again long term strategy) and Motivate and Inspire employees. I've seen my immediate manager unable to motivate and inspire my own team. They do what their intrinsic motivators lead them and are mostly there for the extrinsic rewards of their paychecks. They do not do anything more than needed for the extrinsic rewards. While there are certain intersects i've mentioned above, I do feel that Leadership is different from management. Any leader can manage...but not all managers can lead. Some managers are there just to maintain order and consistency in the Organization. They are there to keep the 'process and procedure' in place, while leaders define the process and procedures, vision and mission of the organization.

MT