Description of Management and Leadership

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Hi,

Interesting topic! Have you given some thought to the company that you would like to use? One approach to help you with an assignment like this is to proved information from various business research for each question, which you can then consider along with your own research for your final paper. This is the approach this paper takes.

The questions can act as a tentative outline for your paper, which will look something to the effect...

I. Introduction (e.g., about 1/4 - 1/2 page; introduce topic and organization; include a purpose statement: The purpose of the this paper is to...)

II. Describe your organization (about 1/4 - 1/2 page)
III. Management versus Leadership (about 2 pages)
IV. Creating and Maintaining a Healthy Organizational Culture (about 2 pages)
V. Functions of Management and a Healthy Organizational Culture (about 2 pages)
VI. Recommended Strategies (about 1/4 - 1/2 page)
V. Conclusion (several sentence to 1/2 page; tie up main points).

Now let's look at information from various sources to consider for each section.

1. Select an organization with which you are familiar.

As a case in point, let's use Apple Computer Inc. (presently dropped Computer e.g. Apple Inc.).

However, it asks you to choose an organization for which you are familiar. See attached article. See Figures 1, 2 and 3 describing healthy and not so healthy organizations (Beer, 2002, pp. 15-17). Or, is Apple Computer Inc. okay?

2. Differentiate between management and leadership within your selected organization.

Management is the process of getting activities completed efficiently and effectively with and through other people. Leadership is about supporting and encouraging the people to carry out the activities for a successful outcome.

Rather, leaderships is visionary, inspiring and daring are words that describe the Transformational Leader. These are the people that revive failing companies. They lead other firms into a future that is very different than their past. For example, transformational Leaders have lofty goals and high ideals. They are seen as people of high integrity. Relational Leaders gain commitment through participative problem-solving. In leadership, the leaders create even greater commitment through shared values in addition to participation. This sort of transformation requires a wide-ranging re-examination of the organization's purpose, structure and culture by many individuals and groups within. Such re-examination requires discussion and serious debate. People do not accept new values just because the leader tells them to do so. The leader guides this debate. He/she establishes the context and rules for constructive conflict and dialogue. In hundreds of places and thousands of meetings, people begin to operationalize new values (http://www.strategosinc.com/leadership_transformational.htm).

The leaders at Apple Computer Inc. were less than effective in leading the necessary changes. For example, the leaders did not exercise the skills needed to an effective leaders today, including being assertive risk-takers who seize opportunities. They are also systems thinkers who understand the interactions of people, technology and culture. Such leaders often have an additional trait, which we will consider separately: personal charisma. At the application level, leadership lends itself to the most difficult, complex and vague organizational problems. These are the adaptive problems that require re-thinking of the organization's structure, values and culture. Culture involves the team Approach and high morale. Effective leaderships is about creating even greater commitment through shared values in addition to participation. This sort of transformation requires a wide-ranging re-examination of the organization's purpose, structure and culture by many individuals and groups within. ...