Theme 3 : Most effective Leadership & Management Styles & approaches

There is a clear difference between a Management and a Leadership. The management is responsible for the actual running and administration of the business and the workforce. While on the other hand, Leadership is more about inspiring subordinate through action and setting examples (Andrew, 2017). There are three main differences between a manager and a leader. Firstly, a leader of a team always has new ideas to move the company forward, developing new techniques and strategies for the organization. Managers on the other hand maintains and make sure the existing techniques and strategies is running smoothly through controlling subordinates while preventing any problems occur. Second difference, Leader pushes subordinates to do their best through inspiring trust giving freedom and believing the subordinates. On the other hand, Manager pushes subordinate to do their best by establishing control over their subordinates.  Third, a good leader must possess good judgement, constantly asking the question “what” and “why” which help them to innovate and produce new ideas. A good manager must be good at assessing and analysing failures, constantly asking the question “how” and “when” which help them to make sure plan executed properly.  Due to the difference in role, an exceptional leader may not necessarily be an phenomenal manager and vice versa (Avantika, 2018).

(Victoria, 2017)

John Adair’s simple Action-Centred Leadership model illustrated the best effective approach to managing the work of subordinates by integrating leadership and management. The three mutually dependent core management responsibilities; achieving the task, managing the team or group and managing individuals is represented by three overlapping circles as shown in the diagram below.

(Kaplan Financial Knowledge Bank, 2017)

John describes the managers responsibilities for achieving task is to set direction of the group and create a plan. Besides that, the manager also has to establish roles and delegate work to the members and set performance standard to keep track on the progress. John also describes the managers responsibilities for managing the group is to establish good communication between each member and build the team spirit. Besides that, the manager also has to provide motivation and discipline to the group. Lastly, John describe the manager responsibilities for managing individuals is to provide coaching and counselling to individual member. The manager also has to develop and motivate the member as an individual (Expert Program Management, 2017).

I personally agree to the statement where “there is no single ideal, as the best approach may vary according to circumstances and individual characteristic.” For example, a management approach will be more appropriate for places such as factory specifically the production line. Where the main priority here is to meet the targeted production volume, the management approach will allow the production to run smoothly without any unnecessary distractions. On the other hand, a leadership approach will be more appropriate for workplace which requires more creativity such as video production companies. The leadership approach will allow the subordinate to have enough freedom to express and allow their creativity to flow which will result in better and more interesting ideas.

Elon Musk is an example of a transformational leader that fit my idea of how I would like to be led in the future. “The thing that makes Elon Elon is his ability to make people believe in his vision” says Dolly Singh, former HR head at SpaceX (Kurt, 2016). Elon Musk truly believe in his vision and through his own drive towards excellence, it pushes the employees to their fullest potential. He is also a great example of how a good leader is able to motivate and gives passion to subordinate through his action and speech. Another transformational leader Jack Ma leadership style is how I would like to be led in the future. Just like Elon, due to his strong vision, charisma and optimistic personalities, he is able to motivate and pushes subordinate to their full potential. However contrary to many Western companies, Jack believes that the key to success is to unite the company under a single goal instead of individual visions (Steven, 2016).

From left, Elon Musk and Jack Ma (Henry, 2014)

At the moment being new to the working environment, I would prefer to be led by a leader with democratic leadership styles. I believe the democratic leadership styles will not only allow me to easily learn from my peers and superior, it will also allow me to have a chance to voice my opinion. I believe when I am able to get feedback on my opinion in my early stages of career, it will form and make my judgement more mature in the future. This will eventually allow to advance further in my career path. However, one of the main disadvantages of this leadership style is time consuming. It takes extra time for democratic leaders to collect variety of opinion from different individuals.

 

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References:

Andrew Arnold (2017) ‘Management vs Leadership – Understanding The Differences’. Blumint Digital [online] https://blumint.co/management-vs-leadership-understanding-differences [21 October 2018]

Avantika Monnappa (2018) ‘What’s the Difference Between Leadership and Management?’. Simplilearn [online] https://www.simplilearn.com/leadership-vs-management-difference-article [21 October 2018]

Expert Program Management (2017) ‘Action Centred Leadership: John Adair’. [online] https://expertprogrammanagement.com/2011/08/action-centred-leadership-john-adair/ [21 October 2018]

Henry Feng (2014) ‘Hidden Beneath Texts: Analytics of Jack Ma’ Retirement Letter and Elon Musk’s Privatization Letter’. Towards Data Science [online] https://towardsdatascience.com/hidden-beneath-texts-analytics-of-jack-ma-retirement-letter-and-elon-musk-s-privatization-letter-85ec2af4a2db [21 October 2018]

Kaplan Financial Knowledge Bank (2017) ‘Adair – Action-centred leadership’. [online] http://kfknowledgebank.kaplan.co.uk/KFKB/Wiki%20Pages/Adair%20-%20Action-centred%20leadership.aspx [21 October 2018]

Kurt Blazek (2016) ‘The Transformational Leadership Style of Elon Musk’. TruScore [online] https://www.truscore.com/360-feedback-resources/leadership-style-of-elon-musk/ [21 October 2018]

Steve Kux (2016) ‘8 Keys to Success from Jack Ma, Self-Made Billionaire and CEO of Alibaba’. Lifehack [online] https://www.lifehack.org/articles/work/8-keys-success-from-jack-self-made-billionaire-and-ceo-alibaba.html [21 October 2018]

Victoria Spadaccini (2017) ‘Mangers vs Leaders: What is the Difference?’. Michael Page [online] https://www.michaelpage.com/advice/management-advice/development-and-retention/managers-vs-leaders-what-difference [21 October 2018]