Free Custom «Management and Leadership Paper» Essay Paper

In modern organizations, management and leaders are closely connected concepts In this organizational context, management may be considered an intervening variable which, to a large extent, links the relationship between the company on the one hand and society on the other. In contrast to management leadership is based on a strong personality of a leader and his charisma which influence employees and organizational culture in general. General Electrics is one of the organizations based on strong leadership and effective management principles.  The culture being followed in GE act is consolidator of beliefs, goals, assumptions, and values of the members. These outcomes are critical in ensuring the existence of firms in competitive industries and markets. The superior performance of firms described with strong cultures has been developed through socialisations and other communication techniques. Similar to OD of culture and teamwork, the knowledge shared by GE employees is critical to the success of the organisations. The process of socialisation attempts to allow individuals to accept the values necessary in building strong organisations. Leaders reinforce these values through the promotion of behavioural norms and other important aspects.

 

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Management and Leadership

Management activity aims to coordinate and control HR and means of production. Modern management require systems of interrelationships among people, functions, and activities. Organizational coordination and integration of behavior and activities to achieve a firm's objectives should be achieved at three levels: the corporate level, which coordinates the marketing activities of separate businesses; the interdepartmental level, which coordinates with other departments; and the intradepartmental level, which coordinates within marketing (McNamara, 2010). A business is a social system whose efficiency is influenced greatly by interpersonal relationships. Thus, to understand a marketing organization is to understand more than its formal structure. No one organizational scheme can be developed, or set of principles established, that can specify the best organization for a company. But knowledge of factors influencing organizational behavior, of the impact of market forces, of organization concepts, and of alternative tools for coordinating and integrating human effort, can furnish a basis for approaching the problems of marketing organization. Leadership is concerned with the determination of basic and fundamental corporate values and is reflected in the kinds of marketing strategies chosen and decisions made. Marketing executives can only be effective through other people, for decisions are valueless until someone does something about them. Good implementation requires good organization and a sensitivity to human beings. Facts alone are not enough for effective decisions: people-mindedness is a requisite. Generally, some variant of democratic leadership appears to be superior to both autocracy and anarchy (General electrics Home Page, 2010).

In contrast to management, leadership plays a crucial role in enabling and enhancing effective performance in modern organizations. At the highest level in the organization, the vision and strategic goals of leadership determine if the organization will actively nurture creativity, or tolerate it with indifference, or "search out and destroy" it. Only when the top leadership is enthusiastic about radically new developments and values creativity will it provide the needed challenges and opportunities for people to be creative. While the top leadership defines the overall cultural context for creativity, other levels of leadership that are closer to the day-to-day operations are likely to have a more immediate impact on creativity. Leadership that is effective for creativity satisfies the expectations of creative individuals, fulfills the demands of creative work, and integrates the creative effort with the goals and values of the organization (Leadership vs. Management, 2010).

Role and Responsibilities of Managers

In GE, coordination is one of the main responsibilities of managers. Also, the "spill over" of management into other functional areas, the use of marketing specialists, and the necessity of linking independent operating entities such as manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers in an integrated system, places heavy burdens on coordination. These burdens are eased by greater use of committees that include people outside marketing, the addition of non-marketing personnel to marketing staffs, and the establishment of coordinating responsibilities such as research and development, product planning, and market planning (McNamara, 2010).

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Motivation and control necessitates communication, formal and informal, vertical and horizontal, to and from the marketplace. In large firms with multiple levels of management, widely diversified products, and geographically decentralized plants and distribution centers, complex networks of communication have come into being, and the information they gather affects the efficiency of the organization and largely determines its operational effectiveness. GE contains several structures. A task structure delineates the work people are expected to perform. An authority structure gives some people the responsibility for directing others, although in practice there may be a discrepancy between responsibility and authority (Leadership vs. Management, 2010). Middle managers are operating in between and perform both selective decision making and personnel functions. Given the difference in positions, the study investigated such concept with leadership and change. The results indicate that the position have indeed an impact on the views of individuals when it comes to effectiveness of leadership in change. Only self-understanding and accountability were considered as the general trait of leaders in change management. Thus, it is vital to make employees believe in positive outcomes of change and help the management in implementing what has been planed. These techniques can be used by the invited consultant in order to make employees not aliens but parts of the organization working for its and their own benefit. In order to avoid their resistance to new conditions, employees have to be trained, educated and communicated with, which will guarantee positive outcomes of change even conducted top-down on the initiative of the management (Leadership vs. Management, 2010). A distinction may be drawn between the basic organization under the marketing philosophy and under the more traditional approach. The latter emphasizes sales-force management in a functionally organized company. In reality, however, although the sales executive is responsible for sales and sales-related activities, marketing activities may be shunted to other functional areas. Although committees may not be of the most efficient form of organization because of differences of opinions, the compromising nature of actions, and the time consumed in arriving at decisions, they can be more objective and do bring different perspectives to bear on a marketing problem. This organizational form has proven useful in problem solving, and in marketing, broad policy decisions are usually committee-made. Various kinds of marketing committees exist. Some have decision-making power; some have auditing and review power; some have operating power; while others are advisory and planning in nature.

Recommendations

In order to create a healthy organizational culture, GE mangers and leaders should inspire and motivate employees. Specialization of task by units results in fragmentation and creates problems in communication and coordination. The greater the degree of specialization, the greater the tendency to concentrate on individual functions while losing sight of overall corporate objectives. In order to solve this problem conflict resolution techniques should be introduced by GE management. Thus, in large companies conflicts may arise among product group, functional, and territorial managers, even though all are preoccupied with marketing. Despite protesting cries that marketing specialists are "organization men," organizations require routines, programs and procedures, and conformity (McNamara, 2010).

Motivation and a new work structure requires change. For GE, profitable changes require information, intertwined with organization structure, which in turn shape the information base. As companies grow to include wider territories and product lines, formal intelligence systems become requisite for evaluating and designing organizations. GE must change in two ways. First, GE must plan to make radical adjustments over the long run to meet frantic market changes. Second, GE must meet shorter-term changes that require less radical but continuous adaptation. GE growth depends on marketing in three ways. First, where there is unused productive capacity, marketing pressures are generated to use it, which occasions additional expenditures on salesmen, advertising, distributors, and marketing research. Second, marketers develop new uses for current products.  Since the problems are identified, the management needs to eliminate stressful components of change. It means that negative stimuli stalling good behaviour will be removed. GE also needs to emphasise on the commitment of the employees to change. This is like a renewed assurance to accept change. The last phase of the process involves finding the proper behaviour for expected changes. This also includes the elimination of bad behaviours that ware observed (Leadership vs. Management, 2010).

Organizational effectiveness requires careful assessment and reassement of objectives, goals, and policies, together with the implementation of marketing action, the marshaling of resources to achieve goals, and the institution of control that is leadership-based. All this, in turn, must be carried out by departments. Even when creativity is greatly valued in an organization, it cannot be supported just for its own sake, and it cannot be supported endlessly. Therefore, selectivity enters in where the key decision makers place their bets, and how far they go with these bets. And when a good breakthrough is achieved--which may happen suddenly and unexpectedly--it is important for the organization to move opportunistically to exploit the new possibilities and identify future projects that can build on this breakthrough. GE leaders should create the image of being backed by supporting research and development activities, and of being innovators who emphasize quality, establish pricing, and set other trends. Followers make decisions to mass-produce items developed by others, to imitate, or to adhere to set prices. Marketing decisions, organizations, and leadership posture are intertwined (McNamara, 2010).

Conclusion

Leadership has both personal and organizational dimensions, the former concerned with the leader's influence over individuals and groups and the latter with the leadership of organizations. The two are interrelated, for leadership influences the activities and effectiveness of organizations through setting goals and providing direction and motivation. Also, a leader must know the psychological needs of his people as well as the organizational requirements and technical aspects of marketing. Organizations facilitate getting things done through others. The success of a leader will be measured by the performance of the organization under his authority. It has been said that an organization is merely the lengthened shadow of its leader and that the top executive, in fact, personifies the business. Leadership suggests vision. It grows out of the ability to innovate and overcome the limitations of traditional patterns and methods. Good leadership requires the acceptance of risk, the adjustment to new situations, and the recognition of opportunity. Through good leadership, organization should help human corporate resources reach high levels of accomplishment. The autocrat dictates; he makes the decisions, assigns tasks, and stands above the group.