Nardelli's Leadership Style

Studies on the subjects of leadership and management have the underlying difference between a leader and a manager as “managers maintain things and leaders change things.” Gill (2006:26) explains their difference as “Managers plan, allocate resources, administer and control whereas leaders innovate, communicate and motivate”

Leadership is a facet of management. It is just one of the many assets a successful manager must possess. The main aim of a manager is to maximize the output of the organization through administrative implementation. To achieve this managers must undertake the four functions of management: planning, organization, leading and controlling. In some cases leadership is just one important component of the leading function. Predpall (1994) said, "Leaders must let vision, strategies, goals, and values be the guide-post for action and behavior rather than attempting to control others". In some circumstances, leadership is not required. For example, self-motivated groups may not require a single leader and may find leaders dominating. The fact that a leader is not always required proves that leadership is just an asset and is not essential.

Some theorists use the terms ‘leadership’ and ‘management’ reciprocally as if they are tantamount with one another, while others use them in a very purposeful sense to express that they are, in effect, rather different (Bush, 2003). Organisational successfulness, it is generally accepted, is dependant on both competent leadership and consistent management (Dimmock and Walker, 2005) According to Grace (1995) they do not follow from one or the other, but

Prosperous businesses should ensure dedicated frontrunners and supervisors that cultivate, reinforce, and reassure member of staff endurance within a business. At hand is a substantial differentiation concerning guidance and supervision. Generally leadership can be perceived as a perception of communication and business’s visualization, whereas, management can be viewed as achievement of the business’s visualization. It is to my belief that when speaking of leadership and management, the two stands strongly connected, yet equally signify and sustain different assignment and obligations.

The contingency theory (Browning, 2007, p. 190) suggests that leader’s effectiveness depends on how well the leader’s style fits the context. This means effective leaders in this era have the ability to distill their complex messages into accessible ones. In other words, an effective leader is aware of his/ her client’s informational needs and values and thus, creates information to suit their needs. Therefore, leaders tend to regulate and control expressive activity in and around the workplace from legal, managerial, and ethical perspectives (Barry B, 2007). This trend tends to work for organizations that try to cover massive change by creating as little impact on their employees as possible without doing anything ethically wrong in their business.

Leadership at times can be a complex topic to delve into and may appear to be a simple and graspable concept for a certain few. Leadership skills are not simply acquired through position, seniority, pay scale, or the amount of titles an individual holds but is a characteristic acquired or is an innate trait for the fortunate few who possess it. Leadership can be misconstrued with management; a manager “manages” the daily operations of a company’s work while a leader envisions, influences, and empowers the individuals around them.

Stephen R. Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: described the difference between management and leadership as “Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.”

In addition, leadership itself can be described in various forms and through the highlight of different skill sets, but the one thing that all definitions have in common is that “leadership involves influencing the attitudes, beliefs, behaviours and feelings of other people” Spector’s work (as cited in Curtis, de Vries, & Sheerin, 2011, p.306). When the skill set of a leader is compared to that of a manager, true differences are noted. Some of these key differences are apparent even in the approach utilized to reach the desired goals. While a manager directs, a leader transforms, a manager sustains and a leader improves, a manager controls, a leader motivates, a manager’s focus is on short-term goals and a leader’s is long-term based, managers ask how and when, while

Much has been written about the difference between management and leadership. In the past, competent management staffs ran effective companies. In light of our ever-changing world, however, most companies have come to realize that it is much more important to lead than to manage. In today's world the old ways of management no longer work. One reason is that the degree of environmental and competitive change we are experiencing is extreme. Although exciting, the world is also very unstable and confused. In an article entitled What’s the Difference between Your Hospital and the Other? Gary Campbell states that the difference between a manager and a leader is that the manager “finds himself quite willing to

One of the theories that can be used to dissect Nardelli’s role as a leader is the trait theory. Trait theories are based upon the concept that leaders are simply born with a set of traits such as social, personal, and personality traits and also physical characteristics that outline how they are as a leader (Baack, 2012). Nardelli had a good foundation of traits for being a leader but there were some personality traits that kept him from being a great leader. He had a strong desire for setting and achieving goals but his interactions with people, employees and customers alike, were what caused him problems. Robert Nardelli was not known as being a personable individual and tended to focus more on the numbers that the stores were generating rather than the people that were providing those numbers. As a leader it is important to be balanced between the two aspects as you cannot have one without the other. It is impossible to lead people if there is no desire to relate to them and this is the issue that Nardelli was faced with. The profits that an organization is generating can only take you so far; it is the people that need to be the focus first and then one can move on to other aspects.

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on my thoughts on how I can utilize certain methods that will help shape the vision of the organization. I will explain how ethics play a role in leadership and decision making. This week I encountered multiple dilemmas which affected my actions at work, home, and school; in this paper I will exploit those dilemmas and how they are considered weakness that I incorporated in my IDP. Using last week 's assignment to start an IDP, I came up with certain actions (part 3) to take to further advance myself as a leader. The reasoning behind these actions will show how proper ethical actions define a leader, and the influence it holds with the organization’s culture.

In general, we are familiar with the quote managers do things right while leaders do the right things. In essence, the analytical versus the holistic approach of leadership addresses these two separate and distinct functions within an organization. For instance, a manager focuses on the daily operations of an organization with an emphasis on team delivery, budgeting, and supervising the employees. Contrarily, leaders within an organization focus their time on improvements and innovation. In particular, leaders can perform this function since they are not culpable for routine tasks and mired in the minutia. As a result, there is a misnomer that managers are leaders and leaders remain managers, but they are not exclusive. Therefore, being a manager and a leader requires different abilities and dispositions.

Management differs today than it did in the past. In the past, managers were considered “bosses” and their job mostly consisted of giving employees orders, monitoring performance and reprimanding unproductive behavior and misconduct. Many managers still manage employees in such fashion; however, some managers now tend to be more proactive and have changed managerial functions for the betterment of company operations and performance to accomplish organizational goals. Effective management for company success now entails guiding, training, supporting, motivating and coaching employees verses

Leadership, according to theorist John Kotter, “…is about… coping with change” (Kotter, 1990, p. 4). By this definition, one should consider leadership to be the product of change in context and the ways in which the response to this change informs strategy. “Leadership is…a set of traits, qualities and behavior possessed by the leader that encourage the participation, development, and

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.