Management and Leadership

Solution Preview

Select an organization with which you are familiar (Wal-Mart). Prepare a paper in which you address the following as it relates to that organization:

§ Differentiate between management and leadership.

Management at Wal-Mart is a combination of exceptionally rigorous controls and standards along with a surprising degree of freedom to innovate and test new things. The staff get together with the head of each operation and they go through the results, discuss in details about what went well and what needs to be improved. There is much inherent transparency within the company as people are always encouraged what their problems are. Its controls are excellent and it makes the company good. Those kinds of controls are complemented by an openness to change that helps keeps the organization from becoming rigid and unresponsive. Management walks around the floor with their fellow associates and this happens both in the stores and in the distribution centers as well. Their leaders lead simply by meeting the needs of the team. Management has an open door policy for associates to talk with management and the employees are encouraged to approach their leaders if they have any problem or concern.

"Leadership is an organizational role involving establishing a clear vision, communicating the vision with others so that others will follow willingly, providing information, knowledge, and methods to realize that vision, and coordinating and balancing the conflicting interests of all members or stakeholders" (Business dictionary, 2009). A leader "keeps people focused on moving the organization toward its ideal future, motivating them to overcome whatever obstacles lie in the way" (Bateman & Snell, 2009). Leaders clearly see the future of the organization and they sell the vision. Most of all, they capture the hearts and minds of their employees and stir up a desire to be a part of something big. The leadership style/s an organization uses can make or break it. It is also the determining factor on how a staff functions. Wal-Mart uses charismatic leadership style with its owner, Mr. Sam Walton saying that his leadership style creates wonderful morale to help the whole team accomplish an overall goal. Wal-Mart also uses the servant leadership style which involves any person at any level within the organization to be a leader and lead simply by meeting the needs of the team.

Management allows freedom to test and innovate new things while leadership is the way leaders implement the management style of the organization. In the case of Wal-Mart, their leaders get together with their team members to brainstorm on major project operations and check what went well and which aspects need improvement. This is how they implement their management style. Another management style is open-door policy and the leaders go with their members and encourage them to open up their concerns and problems.

§ Describe the roles and responsibilities that organizational managers and leaders play in creating and maintaining a healthy organizational culture.

Most companies find it hard to identify what a learning organization should be and to actually become one. Managers and companies can promote the concept of being a learning organization by assessing whether the company is in need of a short-term fix or ...