Essay Summary of Management and Leadership

Abstract

This research paper examine in detail, the roles and responsibilities of organizational managers and leaders, in creating a healthy organizational culture. The paper will explain key terms in management and leadership; in addition will describe the roles played by the organization managers and leaders in maintaining a healthy organization culture. We will analyze NIKE as an example to illustrate its management and leadership. Our focus will be on how the functions of management support the creation & maintenance of a healthy organization culture and conclude with a recommendation that can be used by organization managers and leaders to create and maintain a healthy organizational culture in (NIKE)

Introduction

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Management is concerned with merging coordinating resources, either in form of money or people, to achieve the organizational goals. Leadership is one of the components of the directing function of a manager.  A manager does not need to be just a leader. He/she needs some formal authority to be effective. This ability to marshal resources; lay out plans, program work, and effectively aggregate human effort is the key to accomplishment of this purpose. (Hamel and Bill August 12 2007).

NIKE is widely known for its dominance in the world market in sports and fitness. Their achievements are due to its good management and leadership. Its history dates back to its parent establishment in Germany in early 60s.  By this time, it had taken command in the US athletic footwear industry. Due to competition from other companies availing the same product in the market, NIKE took a quick initiative of venturing into a new athletic footwear brand with the highest quality among those in the market thus maintaining its lead in the world market.

The economic integration on globalization of the world economy became a huge boost to the company’s economic performance in early 70s as it enabled access to international markets to subside the domestic one. The company had therefore to restructure its planning so as to meet the effect of world/global market with its rapid growth. The organizing process along with planning played major roles towards achieving the increased products market demand regardless of any competition in the market. (Nike.com)

The distinctive difference between managers and leaders is the way they motivates those who work or follow them (Ferdinand, 2007)

Managers in another perspective think incrementally, while leaders think radically. Managers can be said to do things right while leaders does what is right thing. By doing things right a manager follows the policies of the company while leaders act by their ignition to do things right.  This might however, be advantageous to the company in some instances.  The combined attributes of management and leadership are important in any organization. There are emerging trend to build more effective managers.

Through upgrading their leadership attributes, i.e. inner or personal qualities that constitute effective leadership. (Ulrich, Zenger and Smallwood, 2002).NIKE management concerns itself with how the company and its employees are perceived by the market. NIKE management is also vocal about the changes it has made in improving the welfare of these employees whom it views to be the central group to achieve the organizations objectives.

NIKE managers likes to get things done and often within constraints of time and money.  The subordinates are expected to perform as per the work focus. Managers have a weakness in conflict solutions and they seek to avoid these conflicts where possible. Leaders on the other hand have followers other than subordinates.  The authoritarian control of managers is not part of the leadership of NIKE they work through allowing a fully participation of the workers in decision making.

Leaders are always good to people and possess a strong Charisma which people find easier to follow/emulate. The style of leadership is transformational and promises benefits such that; their followers will not just receive extensive reward but will somehow become better people. The focus toward people in NIKE is very effective and tends to create loyalty.

In a contrasting feature, managers risk-averse where leaders risk seek. When pursuing their vision they consider it challenging to encounter problems and may sometimes avoid them on the way. Leaders see routes that others avoid. The greatest secret in the success of NIKE lays in their ability to convert challenges into opportunities a good requirement for managers. The above summaries are listed in appendix I.

In their effort to create a good organizational culture, NIKE managers and leaders have formulated standardized codes of conduct that streamlines the operations of the company.

Leadership and management are all important functions in NIKE but with different purposes. The two seek to obtain different outcomes.  Leadership roles include, decision making, communication, evaluation facilitation, risk taking, monitoring, energizing coaching, counseling, teaching, critical thinking, advocating, visionary, forecasting, influencing, diplomacy and role model.

NIKE integrated leader-manager focuses on longer visionary and futuristic functions that affect future outcomes. Their focus is always towards the large organization. The integrated leader-manager emphasizes on vision, virtues and motivation. Their sensitive to workers is demonstrated on the way they strive to improve the conditions of working in the various countries that they operate.

As (Marquis, and Huston, 2005) writes, leader-managers should think in terms of change and renewal. The traditional managers accepted structures and process of the organization, but the leader manager examines the ever-changing reality of the world and seeks to revise the organization to keep pace. By doing this NIKE has greatly achieved a deal in creating and maintaining a health working environment culture. The above goals are summarized in appendix II below

The management functions include; planning, organizing, delegating, problem solving, evaluating, and enforcing policies.  The management function is concerned with the day-to-day activity of the organization and with maintaining the status quo and therefore stability for the organization. The roles of leaderships discussed above are directed towards pushing the organization forward into the future and thereby changing the status quo. (Ulrich, Zenger and Smallwood, 2002)

The above functions of planning, organizing, delegating, and problem solving, evaluating and enforcing policies have assisted the management in making effective decisions meant to improve the working standards in NIKE. Each of the management functions has a planning a controlling phase. The planning strategy in NIKE does not delineate organization barriers to productivity and money. The workers are motivated not only by economic rewards and attention but also there is emphasis on job satisfaction. The planning and controlling base of the management functions has seen the emergence of good working relations and productivity within NIKE. These functions emphasize o the need of the worker recognition.

References

Ferdinand, P.D.2007. Management:  Responsibilities and Practices, Transactional Publishers

Hamel, Gary & Bill green. The future of management, Harvard Business School, Colleen, Kaftans, Ed.

Marquis, B.L.and Huston, C.J.2005. Roles and Management Functions in Nursing: Theory and applications, Williams & Wilkins publishers

‘Nike.com’ http://www.nike.com/index.jhtml

Ulrich, D., Zenger, J., and Smallwood, N.M.2002. Results-Based Leadership,

Bennis Publishers

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