During these topics I will summarize what the book talks about then analyze what was discussed and provide my thoughts about whether or not I think it is realistic or wishful thinking. Managing versus Leading The first section of the book is titled Find Peace at Work and it is broken down to areas that you (the Leader/Manager) are forced to look at yourself in the mirror and determine if you are the best person for the position which you hold in your organization. Ms.
Wakeman discusses that you are ultimately responsible for your happiness, satisfaction, and the productivity of your team at your organization. The book discusses that you are the one that is the cause of your suffering at work, mostly because of the undo stress you put on yourself. This stress is caused by falling into the high school mentality of “he said she said” or the excuses from your employees of “why I can’t”. When you choose to allow these thoughts to manifest in your mind you become overwhelmed with opinions of the work environment and employees.
This ultimately alters your reality and you start acting on emotion rather than keeping the organization and its goals in perspective. If you allow this to happen you will start over managing and under leading. Managers who are so focused on managing rather than leading mostly display a “do as I say not as I do” style leadership. This style has adverse effects with employees within your organization and the environment in which they work in. The managers, who are solely focused on making themselves look good at the expense of others, are typically very poor leaders.
The Essay on Why is it so hard for organizations to manage change?
Jick (1993) defines change as “a planned or unplanned response to pressure and forces. Change is inevitable and organizations, which do not respond to change, are likely to struggle and may eventually, die. Change however can be painful and therefore needs to be managed, as the empirical evidence points to approximately 66% of major changes as failures. Fortune 500 executives claim that this ...
Once an individual has come to the conclusion or Reality that their approach has not been the most conducive for producing the best results, whether it is from a mutiny of sorts or from a review from higher management, then the manager may finally decide to change their reality and start being more of a leader and less of a manager. If not, then it is most likely in the best interest of the company to let that individual find employment elsewhere. In the book Ms.
Wakeman essentially makes the assertion that leading first and managing second will produce the best results for the organization and will make the work environment less stressful for all who work in. Managing versus Leading should, in my opinion, be Leading versus Managing. I feel the in order for you to be a good manager you must first be a good leader. There are many people that have very good managerial skills but if they do not have the necessary skills to be a good leader then the company may not be as successful or healthy as possible.
Leading Your Employees In order to be a successful leader you, the manager, have to put forth the effort. You are going to have to show your employees that you are there for them. She recommends that as a leader you should always have to play favorites with your employees. In today’s economy and work environment companies are always looking at the bottom line. If there is a way to increase revenue and decrease costs the company will want to do that as much as possible by improving processes, combining responsibilities or by lowering their human capital.
Leaders do not have the energy to motivate all of their employees all of the time, this results in the leader picking the top 20% of employees and giving them the most leadership and direction. The thought with this is some of the middle 60% will rise up wanting to belong to the top and the others will fall to the bottom. I see this practice as “trimming the fat” of the organization by terminating the ones who are only there to take up space and collect a paycheck. For this strategy to work in today’s sue happy world you will have to maintain extensive records of your employees.
The Business plan on Entrepreneurial Leader Change Organization Leadership
... management development programme based on the theme of! SSManaging relationships!" is most appropriate for the temperamental leaders in our organization. ... / he can bring to the organization. Employees should be encouraged to incorporate things ... building learning organisations. The learning circle has no beginning and no ... character of the leader that makes the real difference.Those leaders who find deep ...
You will have to sit down with each and every one of them and ensure they know what is expected of them within the organization or the team. By focusing on the top performers within your organization you allow them the latitude to make their own decisions for the tasks that they were assigned. This makes your job as a leader and a manager easier and makes the employees feel they belong to a higher purpose and the satisfaction that they are an integral part of the organization.
It will also allow you to focus more on the development of others help them achieve higher degrees of satisfaction and possibly accelerate their career by getting promoted to higher positions within the organization. A successful leader will be contagious within the organization. When you, the manager, are faced with change, whether it is changing a process or it is the higher management wants to lower their human capital, you are going to have to be the engine that drives your employees even if you are not involved in the decision making.
Leaders must display strength and willingness to adapt with their environment and put forth the honest effort that the job will get done how upper management wants it to get done. When the leader shows the he is unwavering in his abilities the employees will feed off that and utilize his energy for their own and make the changes necessary. The employees will begin to “roll with the punches” and make change happen with the least amount of emotional impact.
By being an effective leader you are involved with your employees and management, you are the middle man shielding the employees from the higher management that want more and more with less and less. Steven Covey discusses that everyone has a “circle of influence encompassed by a circle of concern” (Center) and that as they build the necessary skills their circle of influence enlarges. If you apply this mentality to the work environment everyone has their own circle but everyone also has a larger circle of concern encompassing them.
The Essay on Employee Empowerment Flat Organization
Employee Empowerment A flat organization is a culture of ownership and partnership, it is an organization that uses teams to increase efficiency, responsiveness and flexibility. The focus is on customer satisfaction, work is directly connected, to customer processes. Employees in a flat organization know the business, they have been delegated the power to think for the whole company. Flat ...
The leaders circle overflows into both upper management and their employees, as their circle gets larger they will have more influence to their employees and a better asset to upper management. With this design and mentality you become the quint essential cog in the corporate system. When you put forth the legitimate effort of leading, counseling, and caring for your employees, your job as a manager will ultimately be easier and less stressful. Employees will then realize that you as a leader are a good asset to them as well as the organization as a whole.
Delegating Your Authority Delegating requires a lot of trust from the leader to the employee but it also gives the employee the opportunity to sink or swim. Delegating is as simple as putting an employee in charge of a group to complete the project on budget and on time in their own way. The leader has to be sure that he picks that right employee to give this authority to because there will always be those employees who make the excuses of why they could not get the job done.
Often times when the leader delegates the authority correctly the leader may learn of a better way to complete a task other than their own, which could influence a change of processes within the organization. Delegating can be the engine that drives change but can also straw the broke the camel’s back. Delegating is a great leadership tool to use to determine which employees will strive to succeed and the ones that will not. Utilizing this tool allows the leader to always utilize the thought process of playing favorites continually weeding out the bad and keeping the good.
However, a leader should never delegate an authority that was delegated to them; this could end up in the termination of their own job. In closing, Ms. Wakeman’s Reality Based Leadership book provides a valuable look into the way to treat your employees both as a leader and a manager. Some of her thoughts, I feel, are a little outlandish but for the most part if managers followed the guide suggested in the book company environments would be a lot healthier.
The Essay on The Roles And Responsibilities Of A Project Manager
... team to help delegate authority to oversee each task. Finally the project manager must have preparation ... to the organizations industry. A project manager is a leader who specializes project management. They ... project managers more every day due the improved financial savings from increased production, employee satisfaction, ... skills obviously will be require for the job at hand. However, they are also ...
