Common Management Interview Question

Good management and leadership are essential for organizations to operate and additionally for the businesses to prosper. When businesses are well administered, they can function successfully and they can function effectively. Managers have exceptionally effective and strong plans, mangers have systematized structures, organizations, and they also assess effects. When businesses are appropriately directed, they acclimate to modifications in the situation and cultivate cultures that encourage obligation and improvement. Mutually good management and good leadership are essential to maintain organizational performance.

For my leadership interview, I chose my cousin Angie. She is a chemical engineer, and I chose her because she has always been someone I have looked up to. She is similar to me in that she is science-oriented and enjoys problem solving. She is also very confident and outgoing, and those are some of the things that I would like to work on in myself. When someone asks me a question, nine times out of ten, I will say the answer and then add, “…but I am not 100% sure”. I think that I leader needs to possess confidence, especially when they are answering questions and making decisions. I am trying to work on that myself, and I thought that talking to Angie would be helpful for me.

To fully explain the relationship between Leadership and Management we need to appreciate that the two go hand in hand, they are by no means the same thing but they complement each other when driving any team to perform and exceed targets within a business. The manager’s job is very task-focused. They often have to follow company

One way to establish the difference between management and leadership is the fact that leadership is simply one of the many things that a manager should have. In fact, this should be one of the priorities of a manager. But aside from this, a manager also needs to be highly knowledgeable in administrative tasks, because this also comprises a huge part of their job. Specifically, a manager has four major functions to do: Planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. All these functions have been proven to be essential in any kind of management process, and serve as the main foundation of all organizations (Bateman & Snell, 2009).

There has been a long debate about the functions of leadership and management. Kotter (1990) argued the goal of leadership is to pursue the adaptive and constructive changes and the purpose of management is to acquire stability and consistency. In addition, he suggested that the process of leadership is to influence others and management is to maintain operations and accomplish goals.

Leadership and management are alike and different in many ways. There are many different debated by scholars regarding the differences of leadership and management (Marquis & Huston, 2009). Part of the confusion stems from the word “leadership”. Marquis and Huston state that, “the word leadership was not known in the English language until the first half of the 19th century” (Marquis & Huston, 2009, p. 32). Theorists and leadership researchers disagree on what the word leadership is (Marquis & Huston, 2009). Therefore, it is wise to state what roles are integral in leadership (Marquis & Huston, 2009). Marquis lists leadership roles as decision maker, communicator, evaluator, facilitator, risk taker, mentor, energizer, coach, counselor, teacher, critical thinker, buffer, advocate, visionary, forecaster, influencer, creative problem solver, change agent, diplomat and role model (Marquis & Huston, 2009). “Leaders are in the front, moving forward, taking risks, and challenging the status quo” (Marquis & Huston, 2009, p. 33). According to Marquis & Huston (2009), the functions of management include planning, organizing, staffing, directing and controlling” (GCU, 2009). Grand Canyons lecture notes go on to state that, “within each of these functions,

Roles of leadership produces change among the movement, establishes direction, aligning people, motivating and inspiring. The roles of both leadership and management have impact on each other and can inspire and make one advance into something they did not believe they have in themselves. Functions of management are making sure employee’s time is managed, jobs assigned are structured, and problems are solved with a prominent solution. Leadership functions are providing a vision one can build up in one’s mind that evolves into a big picture, building goals and teams to brooding ideas, and motivating people that energize them to be motivated to want to work. These roles are similar because leaders can manage and visa verse. Leaders lead people while management delegates roles to lower

This supervisor I selected desires to not be identified, therefore he shall remain anonymous. I created fifteen questions that I asked the selected supervisor regarding his role, challenges they face and how they have overcome these challenges. The interview conducted was a simple ask and response therefor I will start from the beginning. In no particular order the questions I composed I could best relate to a common topic are as follows: 1. Did you have any formal or informal management experience prior to becoming a supervisor? No, he learned everything from on the job training and experience. No prior degrees just accumulated knowledge on individual jobs. 2) Did you work your way up to your position or did you get hired into the position? He worked his way up for four years, started at the same job and worked his way up through each required position all the way to the top. 3) What are some of the challenges associated with managing groups of people? There are different personalities and backgrounds so you have to know how to operate and help them work together and manage them effectively. 4) What are the some of the challenges with balancing your work and role as a supervisor and a co-worker? Knowing when to be a friend and when to be a supervisor, knowing when to address an employee as a co-worker or supervisor for occasionally being a friend is what they need. 5) What time do you usually come into work, and what time do you usually leave, does the time you come in and leave for work affect how you work? Twenty minutes early prior to the time scheduled and ten minutes after work ends to make sure everything is ready for the next time. Yes, if showing up on time it is harder to get adjusted to actually start working, when showing up early you have time to prepare

In the article, Kotter discusses that management and leadership are different concepts. However, these concepts are complementary and needed in order for a particular organization to be successful. For instance, management tends to bring about order and consistency to a particular organization. Meanwhile, leadership enables a particular organization to be able to handle change in this volatile and unpredictable business environment.

For this manager interview paper I chose to interview Michelle Leeds. Michelle is a principle at Partners Capital. Partners Capital is a Outsourced Investment Office, which helps invest the endowments of organizations such as Cambridge College, into various financial instruments. The company currently oversees a total investment portfolio of roughly 17billion dollars of assets. Michelle has been with the company since September of 2010 when she started as a senior associate. Prior to working at Partners Capital Michelle was a financial analyst at Goldman Sachs. Now in her role as a principle, Michelle oversees a team of associates whose primary goal is to the maximize the financial returns on their clients investments through creating diverse

Management involves the tactical aspect of day to day functions and who keeps control of the work environment to make sure the organization is moving forward and in the same direction of the company’s vision. Managers are faced with many responsibilities each day, one of which is managing people. The goal of a successful manager is to achieve the highest productivity of the organization by way of the people he/she manages. A manager is more of a problem solver and takes care of work areas relating to people management, time management, decision making etc.

Leadership is just one of the many assets a successful manager must possess. Care must be taken in distinguishing between the two concepts. The main aim of a manager is to maximize the output of the organization through administrative implementation.

Contrary to popular belief, the terms leadership and management are often thought of as hand in hand, but in retrospect they both have very strong different meanings and are not the same. There are some similar characteristics that can very much persuade some that they align in the same manner. They can be notably known as terms that are used interchangeably in the business world. “Management is a function that must be exercised in any business, whereas leadership is a relationship between leaders and led that can energize an organization” (Maccoby, 2000).

Leadership is about inspiring the confidence and support of people needed to achieve organisational goals, a dynamic relationship between leaders and group members and the facilitation of contribution (DuBrin 2016, p. 3: McShane and Von Glinow 2013, p.351). Kotter (1992, p. 102) draws a distinction between management and leadership, saying the former deals with getting things done while the latter decides what to do and why, but in practice they overlap and complement each other.

The relation between leadership and management has for a longtime influenced how organizations are perceived. It has also contributed to maintain some type of confusion in education and within the organization itself.