Leadership

Manager's V Leaders!

The differences between management and leadership are managers are the main control of the business. They're role is to plan the day to day work of their employee's, to co-ordinate their staff, implement policies such as company policy, fire and health hazards etc. They aim to achieve results within the store/department or organisation. On the other hand, leaders are there to motivate the team, bring new ideas to help the running on the business and inspire the team to generally succeed and occasionally take some of the work and pressure off of the managers (depending on the nature of the business and work).

(Lecture notes, week 5 Leadership).

Blake and Mouton Leadership Grid (X &Y)

After extensive research on leadership and managerial methods, Robert Blake and Jane Mouton (1960), made a graph named managerial grid or leadership grip. The graph illustrates two different types of measurement, concern for people (y axis) and concern for production (x axis). Concern for people demonstrates peoples personal development needs and showing them importance. Where as the concern for production axis talks about, keeping the job about the job and getting the work done.

The five different leadership or (managerial) styles that were found were:-

• The Impoverished manager: This type of manager has a lack of concern and interest for the company, their boss, the work in hand and also the staff. The manager has not commitment to their work and does not care about the well being of its staff.
• Authoritative Management: These managers are allot more focused than the impoverished manager. They make sure the job is done, and they are very good at delegating jobs to their employee's in order to achieve results.
• Social Management (country club): They are very similar to authoritative managers but they believe that to be calm and humble will push and motivate staff to work harder. they rarely critisise or shout at their staff, as they feel that staff will work harder and results will still be achieved.
• The middle of the road manager: This manager, as stated in the title is very in the middle of the social and authoritive manager. They are happy to work with their staff, ease off on them and compromise, but they still expect high results in the business.
• The team manager: The managers of the business should all try to follow this type of style believed by Blake and Mouton (1960). They believe that all staff should be self motivated for themselves and for the wellbeing of the company that they work for. This should be done via working in a team and alone, whilst respecting eachothers decisions.
  

My current manager at T Mobile; I feel that her style of leadership would fit into the middle of the road type of management. This is because she always strived to be friends with the team and build personal relationships with every body. She takes everybodies personal development close to heart and works very hard in ensuring that we all are reaching our full potential and in our preffered job roles. On the other hand, she is still very concerned in the running of the store, e.g. are we hitting our individual targets, are we contributing to the stores targets for the month and quarterly.

Sir Alan Sugar

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6923678.stm

Mr Sugar born and brought up in a council house in Hackney, London. He started working at the age of 12, and continued after school. At the age of 21 he opened his own business named "amstrad" (1968). This was electronics company selling Hi Fi's and computers, by the age of 40 he was worth 600 million. Sir Alan Sugar, owner of many different businesses and also a television programme, The Apprentise is described in the article as "abrasive, opionated and hardworking". Regardless of the many electronic flops that Sir Alan faced in 1990, he was still very persistent in making money and a name for himself and then brought the footclub club, Tottenham Hotspur. I would say that their approach to leadership is similar to the authorative management style, as he is a very persistant man who does not give him. his motivation towards making money has made him one of the wealthiest men in the UK.
Further more, judging by the appretise programme of BBC1, he was very authorative towards the candiates on the programme. He set all challenges locations etc for the groups to do every week, and he also decided who he would "fire" and who he would keep at the end of a challenge. Sir Alan was very specific in what he wanted, and did not settle for anything but the best.
I belive that he is a stronge leader as he is an example for people in the UK that, regardless of where you were born and brought up, in what condition or your educational status. With hard work, commitment and dedication you can achieve what you set your mind and heart to do. He is inspirational to any body like myself who would like to start a business and his strive to become the best makes me workharder to reach my goals.

In conclusion, it is clear what managerial style Blake and Mouton (1960), set for all mangers to follow but, it is hard for all managers to follow the team management style as every person and business is different. It links to motivation as everybody has a different reason for why they work at that chosen organisation and what they want to acheive from the role. This then links to how they treat their staff every day and the work of the business.

References

• Lecture Notes, Week 5, Leadership
• Unknown. (2011) 'Blake and Moutons managerial grid' [online]. Management study guide. Available from: http://www.managementstudyguide.com/blake-mouton-managerial-grid.htm [Accessed 23 January 2011]