Leadership and management are abilities that are far too often confused and conflated in mainstream discourse. There are some similarities between the two, but they are in fact very distinct abilities that encompass a different set of skills and qualities. Good or great managers are present in many organizations while good or great leaders are much scarcer. The skills needed to be a great manager can be developed and honed while the skills necessary to be a great leader tend to be more innate and more difficult to learn (although not impossible).
Managers can manage any number of things. They can manage a task, subordinates, projects, transitions, meetings, or even expectations. Leaders lead people. That is the essence of the difference. A great leader must have the ability to inspire and compel followers (subordinates in the case of a company) to act and perform on behalf of something that may or may not serve their own self interest.
Posts Tagged ‘Followers’
Leadership Vs Management
March 18th, 2010Key points of Synergy – Quality and Environmental Management
August 9th, 2009s period of decreased business expenditure there is a significant reduction in the willingness of organisations to embark on new ventures, such as the application of ISO management systems. What is in evidence is a rejuvenated drive to delve into policies and strategies that have customer appeal. For us, new business has appeared from the need for organisations to be worried about environmental issues, and ISO14001 has become a focus of attention.
From a study of both of these standards there is quite bit that is the same in the documented requirements, and integrated management systems have become the end result of this similarity. It would follow that an organisation can legitimately claim to be operating an environmentally friendly (and ISO14K compliant) business without having formally adopted the 14K standard through third party assessment and registration.
The ISO9001 document allows for the organisation to take cognisance of requirements not arising from the customer, or statutory legislation, but adopted through choice by the organisation. So apart from the registration, and the public recognition(?) that is expected to follow, the ISO14K standard has little to offer an organisation with a sensibly implemented ISO9001 management system and a determination to develop it sensibly. Herein lies the actual problem with the ISO standards as usually implemented and publicly recognised.
With ISO9001 having the potential to combine environmental with quality issues in its scope, the 14K standard is of little value – as a standard. But it isn’t being used as a standard for management purposes, but for registration and publicity. Arguably the only real beneficiaries of ISO14001 are the registrars. But is this situation peculiar to the environmental standard? I think not.
The ISO9001 standard has as its title – Quality management systems. Followers of the stated rules are told to believe the end result to be constantly improving quality. Quality of what? Certainly not the product, there is no claim for that to happen. Any improvement that happens is an improvement to the system. What constitutes an actual improvement seems not to have been seriously considered by either the ISO standards authority, the registrars, or those who pay for the assessment and registration process.
The real problem lies in the nomenclature and the consequential expectation of all stakeholders. Quality management isn’t just about following systems, but understanding and managing work objectives and procedures. ISO9001 is not about quality management, it may be quality control, even quality assurance, but it is not quality management.
By: Ed Bones
