MANAGING CHANGE AND LEADERSHIP

Managing Change and Leadership

Managing Change and Leadership

Much more is expected from managers now than 10 years ago. Being an effective manager requires a deeper level of sophistication and a broader more versatile set of skills. In most industries the pace of change that organisations and their people must cope with is relentless. To be competitive, corporations have had to restructure, downsize, de-layer, and increase spans of control. Additional challenges include managing an increasing diverse work force the changing role of women in business, and the impact of technology on the nature of work pose human resources issues that simply did not exist to the same extent in the last decade.

Despite all of this change, some aspects of managing people are fundamental. Certain truths about motivation, group behaviour, and organisation are valid to day as they were 20 years ago. If anything, the increasing pressures of today's more competitive environment make these basics even more necessary to master. Effective management requires not only dealing with state of the art issues but also handling the essential daily realities of motivating people, solving performance problems, and managing groups efficiently. (Gabarro, 1972-1992: 54)

We concur with Gabarro's debate that the mangers and leaders of tomorrow (i.e. MBA students) have to address two sets of needs: the need for fundamental concepts as well as newer concepts that address today's immerging imperatives. Here we have to ask ourselves what constitutes effective management and leadership and whether these two processes are different from each other.

To recognize the concept of effective management one must first have a basic understanding of Managing and Leading People in an organisational context, and the factors affecting it. Our interpretation of W.Bloisi (Bloisi et al, 2003: 85) has led us to a four pillar conjecture:

* The Organisational Environment and People

* The Individual level (Managing People)

* Group level (Managing behaviour between people)

* Organisational level (Organisational and HR systems and processes)

The first pillar looks at the relationship between managers and the organisation and what managers need to do to guide the people to achieve the organisations goals.

It also looks at developing strategic thought patterns with the aim of were is the organisation going to be in the future, planning on how to get there and the implementation of control systems to measure the gap and to improve.

The second pillar of managing people looks at understanding perception, learning and personality. Perception is how different people see and react to different situations. Learning is a continuous process that is affected by what is happening around us. Every person has a different personality that is pre-determined by our values and attitudes and understanding these can predict employee behaviour.

Motivation is also a key principle of this pillar and here we look at what is it that motivates people and how this can be enhanced to get the most out of people. Managers have many tools at their disposal to motivate the behaviour of employees including cash, better working conditions, lifestyle improvements ...