SESSION 2

I listened to Dr. Newberry's podcast; in it, he discussed the difference between management and leadership. Despite the fact that I was not expecting this subject to emerge out of his podcast I listened to the material presented anyhow.

After listening to Dr. Newberry's lecture, I concluded that managers are mostly interested in the maintenance and control of the daily affairs of the group of people they have been entrusted with; this is the manager's way to reach the objectives of the particular organization in question. Leaders on the other hand, are more apt to think outside the box; these individuals contantly dream up of ways to improve things, procedures, plans, products etc. Leaders by nature are not very interested in the way things are now; rather, they are focused on the way things could be, guided by this relentless vision that constantly whispers to them that things can always be improved, that there is a better way to do something.

Everyone has in themselves the qualities of both a manager and a leader; the ratios of these two qualities however, vary quite a bit from one individual to another: sometimes someone comes accross as an excellent leader, while such individual could also come accross as a lousy manager; other times, another individual comes accross as just the opposite. We must also entertain the idea of all the possible combinations in between these two extremes.

There is a multitude of reasons as to why someone makes a good manger and less of a good leader; perhaps the main reason has to do with the individual's level of commitment to the position entrusted in him; with the idea that management simply consists of just making sure things run smoothly. It is possible that the individual is quite content with the way things are and the initiative to work past his circle of control is simply not there. Or perhaps, working outside the box, working outside the "comfort zone" is theatening to the manager.

I believe most people make good managers; leaders on the other hand are harder to come by. This is because most of us are not comfortable pushing the envelope; let's face it, it requires far more energy and effort to be a good leader, it also requires for the leader to feel that he is fulfilling a natural calling in him. Most people tend to naturally do no more than the absolute minimum required of them. Perhaps this is natural instinct, perhaps it is plain laziness; the point is: it is out there.

The study of Economics is based on the concept that there is a finite amount of economic resources that must be distributed by some sort of efficient system. Based on such concept, the manager's aim is to utilize the limited resources to efficiently run the business operation; the leader on the other hand, strives to come up with new, creative ways to maximize the efficiency with which the resources can be allocated to extract the maximum amount of benefit possible out of the same amount of resources.

It is obvious to note that the leader is looking farther than the manager into how the scarce resources can be more efficiently utilized by the research of never-before used ideas, concepts and newly-emerging theories and procedures. Perhaps the main difference from a manager and a leader is that whereas the manager's goal is to maintain a balance and control of the way things are by being conservative, the leader is a visionary who is capable of developing new concepts, calculates risk and is not as averse to risk-taking to the extent the manager is.

In my anecdotal example, I will compare and contrast my last employer versus my present employer's business styles: my previous employer was a mammoth company that took a very long time to change and implement new ideas; this was because of the firmly-entrenched management culture which resisted change of any type; these individuals were quite content with maintaining the status quo. You will notice that at the beginning of this paragraph I mentioned the word "was"; this is because shortly after I left the job, they were bought out by their competition; thus, the company is now out of business. My present employer on the other hand, is a very dynamic company; management changes rapidly to meet the customer's demands, they quickly react to market changes and they also put lots of effort to anticipate adverse market changes while they also take advantage of positive market changes. Since my present employer is made up of a group of managers who spend most of their time acting as leaders, this has resulted in the company becoming a success as well as a major player in their particular niche.


Weekly Activities:

- Still working hard to catch up with the rest of the class.
- Struggling with photo post in my blog.
- Busily responding to response items on weekly log.
- Reading blog posts.
- Posting comments on blog posts.
- Trying to come up with project ideas; nothing specific yet.
- Downloading podcast for session three.