Unit 2.3 Flashcards
Management
Managers often focus more on the present and the short-term and are responsible for implementing the decisions of others, such as the actual leaders of a business.
Leadership
is the process of influencing people and inspiring others to achieve goals, not actually giving them direct tasks (which is what managers do).
4 Functions of Management
Planning
Organizing
Directing
Controlling.
Planning Managers
Set the course of action to achieve objectives (both short and long term objectives) and conducting analysis of key data such as costs.
Organizing Managers
gathering the resources necessary to carry out actions/plans (such as materials or capital) and establishing structures and teams.
Directing Managers
Influence and oversee the behaviour of staff, motivating through a variety of means (more on this in chapter 2.4) and communicating between all stakeholders connected to the task/objective.
Controlling Managers
Are responsible for the performance, health, and safety of their teams and review procedures once a task is completed. Corrective measures are put in place if targets aren’t met and come up with plans to overcome them.
What is Leadership?
Autocratic, Paternalistic, Democratic, Laissez-faire, and Situational Leadership.
Autocratic
Why: Highly centralized decision making, expected others to follow his vision, often ignoring risks.
Benefits: Innovative leader turned his risky initiatives into great rewards.
Drawbacks: People hated him,
some risks didn’t pay off.
Paternalistic
Nice to their employees
Benefits: Gained the loyalty of early managers and used this to expand Starbucks massively in the 90’s to the early 2000s.
Drawbacks: The company began to tank
when he left in 2000. He was forced to
return in 2008 to correct the company’s path
Democratic
Why: Purposely surrounds himself with people who disagree with him, encourages managers to act like owners and pursue innovation, and purposely recruited international Coca-Cola leader to his core team at HQ.
Benefits: Diverse opinions contributed to success
Drawbacks: Constant discussion and
opinion sharing leads to prolonged and
expensive product and marketing
development.
Laissez-faire
Why: Valve uses a flat organizational structure and under Newell’s leadership, allowed workers to pursue their own projects. This led to the creation of groundbreaking games such as Half-Life and Portal.
Benefits: Creativity can flourish, talented and motivated staff are drawn to such companies.
Drawbacks: In 2018, Steam deregulated their platform and stopped policing its content.
Situational
Often switched between Laissez-faire, democratic, and autocratic styles of leadership based on the project and situation(s) Google was faced with.
Benefits: Allowed an application of different styles to best fit the situation.
Drawbacks: People need to understand
and then change based on the situation
and the leader’s current status.
