Leadership

Even if often used as interchangeable terms, leadership and management have different meaning in an organization; management is used to describe the organizational aspect of a company, in other words actions taken by managers to achieve objectives through the work of members of the company. Leadership represent an interpersonal behavior, in fact, the position of a manager does not necessarily mean he is a leader, he will be considered a leader by his qualities and his charisma; in other words, leadership is a way to operate, and not a function, in fact, managers, usually choose a passive or impersonal way to achieve goals, differently from leaders which adopt a more personal behavior to gain results. Managers have to balance their decisions, leaders instead, acting in a charismatic way, give substance to their images developing choices which create always excitement in members of the company. Different is also the sense of belonging to the company, in fact managers, because their possibilities depends upon their position, feel them selves more linked and dependent to the organization and their work role which is offering to them considerable opportunities, in opposite, leaders, are not dependent by their work position and are continually looking forward to other work opportunities. Finally an other big difference is represented by the emotional involvement which is higher and deep for leaders and lower for managers.

An useful tool which provide a clear and deep analysis of different styles of management is the Managerial/Leadership Grid, developed by Blake an Mouton firstly in 1961 as "Managerial Grid"

and therefore republished in 1991 as "leadership Grid"; evaluating different styles of management, it consider two main dimension, concern for production and concern for people:

concern for production, represented by the horizontal axis, is the level of importance that achieving target and getting results and profits have for managers; concern for people, represented by the vertical axis on the grid, evaluate how important managers consider all exigences and expectations of subordinates and colleagues.

Results provided by comparing these two main dimension are 5 basic combination; the impoverished managers (1,1 rating)which have low concern for both the dimension, that means these managers are remote to their employees and they believe in the minimum movement to maintain their position, improving the concern on one of these two dimension may cause difficulties with the other one; the authority-compliance manager (9,1), provide high concern for production and low concern for people, these managers are autocratic and they believe in the use of authority, motivation is used as a factor of competition for employees in order to achieve established targets and staff just is considered by level production gained; the country-club managers, (1.9) represent low concern for production and high concern for

people, for these managers production is secondary to the aspect of the organizational management, they believe that results can be achieved only providing right motivations to employees, the maintenance of good work conditions and harmony among the staff play a considerable role in the way they act in the company; the middle-of-the-road managers, (5,5) have moderate concern for both the dimensions, these managers swing between a dimension to an other trying to maintain a medium level of production and staff satisfaction in the company; the team manager (9,9), provide high concern for both the dimensions, they believe in involving staff in all the production aspect, for these managers is possible to reach an high level of production only with a deep integrating process of employees in all the company functions.

Last year I worked for Sotheby's in Milan, my role was to contact buyers and explain them the payment method, even if my role was secondary instead of others employees, the manager tried to make me feel like others colleagues, explaining the importance of my job, and his expectation from my effort, and, acting in this way he showed me that for him a good relationship between staff members and a deep involvement of managers in their emotional aspect was more important than target established, even if he did expect me to achieve those targets; this is why, in my opinion, his behavior and way to act was really close to the combination of the country club manager, which give more consideration to the motivational aspect of a company, trying to provide to their employees good work conditions maintaining the level of harmony between staff members.

A great example of a good leader nowadays is Steve Jobs, and the success of Apple in these last years, represent how the leadership of a man which have fundamental qualities can provide to a company considerable improvement and a changing culture. Steve Job can be considered a leader not just for results gained, but also for the imprint he leaved in the business world, creating a new culture, internally for the company and externally for buyers, he firstly collect in an unique zone, all the aspects of the company, employees, costumers, producers, etc.; the way consumers and employees watch at him, the way that people respect him, make him a great leader, and his reputation is continually growing.

Leadership is the perfect answer to the eventual lack that a simple management can create in a company, even if the managerial action is organized and coordinated, some aspects of the company can suffer the absence of a leader; a leader can provide to the environment right solutions and right changes, can integrate all the aspects of an organization and give enough motivation to the staff. The importance of leadership is motivated also by the enormous contribute that a leader give to the emotional aspect of a organization, improving communication and relationship between members and, even more important, leaders can influence people, inspire their actions and create a new vision for people.

References

-Mullins, L. (2007) Management and Organisational Behaviour. 8^th ed. Pearson Education Limited: Harlow