Structure provides movement with a framework within which to move without overreaching itself. Management grounds leadership by setting up and maintaining the systems which provide any organization with coherence, with continuity and sense, with the weight required to prevent it from drifting off into the heavens.

Management is the organization’s way of coping with the fact that leaderships head is always in the clouds. In The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Covey refers to the idea that all things are created twice (1989).

The first creation is a mental one, the second physical. He provides as example the construction of a house.
The first creation is the mental one, the design itself. The second is the putting together of the bricks and mortar, the construction itself. Leadership, in this sense, is the design, while management is the building itself.

Leadership then, is the formative force, management the physical substance. Leadership is water; management is earth. Leadership is process, management is product.

It is incumbent on leadership to ensure that the organization is effective in what it does; that its strategies, and the way in which it gives effect to these, are appropriate and have impact.

It is incumbent on management to ensure that the organization is efficient in what it does; that its internal systems function logically and smoothly. To put it simplistically, it has been said that while leadership ensures that the organization does the right thing, managements responsibility is to ensure that things are done right.

Management then, is about giving substance to organizational direction, and form to organizational needs.
It is about setting up systems and procedures, controlling these systems and procedures so that they function optimally and are adhered to, and ensuring that the various systems and structures articulate coherently.
Systems and procedures facilitate the smooth running of the organization; they ensure that the organization is controlled and disciplined. They provide a structure within which people can operate, and provide a measure of equality in the sense that-everyone is equal before the law.

The attempt of many organizations to develop a democratic organizational form is often interpreted as the need to allow each person full freedom, without accountability. But experience has shown that freedom without accountability leads to the -law of the jungle- where the most powerful dominate all others.
Democracy is a fragile entity which demands the protection of systems and procedures if it is to work and not degenerate into anarchy and chaos.

At the same time, excessive structure and rules can lead to extreme forms of bureaucratic absurdity where peoples creativity and motivation are stifled under the weight of relentless systems and procedures. Balance is vital.
One of the main areas where the quest for balance is so important is around the question of discipline and accountability.

Management control, in this area, entails:
Establishment of performance standards; measurement of performance; evaluation of performance; and correction of performance. Systems and procedures need to be designed in order to ensure accountability and compliance.
At the same time, such systems, once in place, should not be taken for granted and applied by rote. There is always a need to balance organizational needs with individual needs.

Where this is ignored, conflict and tension result. The setting up and monitoring of the systems can be regarded as pure management.

The adjustments of the system to respond to the ebb and flow of organizational and individual fluctuations demands leadership skills on the part of the manager. Note that control does not mean some people controlling others, it means the organization is in control, the parts work together responsibly to create the desired results. This condition is known as accountability.

Well, leaders are born, but only in la la land!!! You can be born with the traits of a leader but the right encouragement is a must for developing leadership skills.

While developing leadership skills at an early stage has its advantages, it’s never too late to start if you haven’t yet discovered the leader in you! And that’s not a whole load of motivational hogwash.

In this piece, let’s take a look at the why and how of developing leadership skills.

Successful management requires more than just assigning tasks to the team. It calls for a leader who can inspire team members to achieve their full potential. People want to be guided by a person they respect, someone who has a clear sense of direction. To be that person, there are certain things that you must BE, KNOW and DO. And that’s what developing leadership skills is all about.

Robert K. Greenleaf

”The only test of leadership is that somebody follows.”

If you want to set an example for others to follow, may we suggest the following check-list?

1. Test the waters: find out what people think about your style of management. This could be a real eye opener, and the key to making changes to your leadership style. Employ a 360 degree approach wherein you receive feedback from your team members and peers. Let your team in on the objective behind the survey. A relaxed and open environment will help draw out their honest opinion.

2. Listen hard: when your team members speak to you about all their work related worries, hear them out. You could convey empathy, suggest alternatives and create harmony within the team. GREAT LEADERS ARE GREAT LISTENERS!!!!!

3. Connect: take complete responsibility for how you are heard. Always rephrase your message to make it sound positive. Effective communication is a fine art.

4. Be a people’s person: an integral part of developing leadership skills is to learn to respect your team’s capabilities. Let the team members take decisions on certain issues. Trust them with their work; don’t be a watchdog.

5. Lead by example: your team must believe in your integrity, and that you really mean what you say. Be prepared to put your money where your mouth is. It works like a charm!

6. Share leadership: distribute tasks among group members depending on the situation and individual strengths. You become a better leader by involving more people in the leadership process.

7. Evaluate your success in tandem with that of the team: your prime responsibility is to ensure success and development of the team. Focus on building their skills as this will enhance motivation and team performance. Remember, their success is yours too!

Harvey S. Firestone said “The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership.” We couldn’t agree more!

Change management was always an integral part of business management, but with emergence of Information technology it gathered seriousness. Information Technology Infrastructure management is one broad term which encompasses all the elements necessary to ensure smooth functioning of business processes which may be threatened due to technological problems or other incidents. It’s the “change is rule” attitude (as coined by some experts) that forced these businessmen to change their attitude towards change management.

Good change management techniques always help the businessmen to adapt and adopt new ways of doing business. Change management is not merely implementation of new techniques to cope up with a change within the organisation; rather it is a discipline of Information technology infrastructure managementwhere changes are managed with a more systematic, reliable, rigorous and disciplined approach. Changes are brought into system when the integrity of business organisation is challenged due to some incidents or customer requests or technological updates.

Process of change management unfolds through following steps:
1. Identifying the need for change in organisation.
2. Designing need specific changes to curb with the requirement of the organisation.
3. Making others understand why change is necessary for the proper functioning of the organisation.
4. Altering the organisational process like processes, technology and performance meters to incorporate the changes.
5. Managing the production and changes to ensure that customer and the stakeholder continues to be bonded with each other over the long run.

According to Wikipedia Change management involves management of process related to Hardware, communications equipment and software, system software, and all documentation and procedures associated with the running, support and maintenance of live systems.

Project management is another aspect of change management, which needs to incorporate its values for proper functioning. There are some touch points between project management and change management. Project management is all about handling change with elance. It is defined as the discipline of planning, organising and managing resources in order to ensure the successful completion of projects.

Aim of any project management endeavour is to attain the successful results despite of constraints like space, time, changes, quality, time and budget. Every project is developed around some permutation and combination methodology. Changes are made to the existing methodology in order to avoid potential failures.

Identifying, managing and controlling changes become important for the smooth functioning of the Project.  According to some experts “project is change and change is project”.  So it becomes difficult to differentiate or draw a line between the inter reliability of project management and change management. So change management holds utmost importance in the world of business where things are assessed on the basis of their perfection and capability to address the needs of customers and clients.

“Until ‘they’ accept my role, and I am officially ‘anointed’ as leader”; “until I’ve got ‘all my ducks in a row’ – finished everything I have to do”; “until I’ve managed some tricky interpersonal issues”; “until I’ve got somebody in place to replace me ‘doing’ all the tasks I’m currently spending all my time on”; “until I’ve got my MBA”…

It’s as though they regard growing into leadership as an incremental process – a place you get to after completing all the prior steps. In fact we’ve met people who assume that because they have mastered a busy and complex managerial job, they are now qualified as a leader – as if it’s the next step on the career ladder!

A ‘State Change’
But growing into leadership isn’t incremental – it’s a ’state change’. It doesn’t take time; it takes a transformation – of outlook, courage and focus. Most of us still have to ‘manage stuff’, even after assuming leadership – we don’t have the luxury of having staff to delegate to, and time in the diary to ‘be a leader’. So management is different from leadership – not better or worse, just a different state. What’s needed is the kind of state change that happens (hopefully!) when you realise you’re the only person who’s noticed the house is on fire! You don’t wait for permission, or to have your position ratified, or for people to like and accept you – you take control and do whatever needs to be done to put the fire out!

You’ll Know it When you See it
And you can see it and feel it. If you’ve ever been lucky enough be present when somebody ‘gets’ it, there’s a visible and palpable difference in the way they talk, move and hold themselves from the way they did before. What that difference is, will be different from person to person. Some get louder and more obviously forceful; others may remain quiet and unassuming – but you’ll still be able to see the difference.

When you’ve experienced this state change for yourself, you may finally realise that what you have been calling Leadership is mostly actually ‘management’ – at a very senior level maybe, but ‘management’ nevertheless. Leaders are as different from managers, as eagles are from chickens – both essential, functional in their own way, but different creatures. And, just as good managers aren’t necessarily good leaders, so great leaders aren’t always good managers. Once you know they are different skill sets, and have experienced the difference in ‘feel’ between them, then you are well placed to assess your weaknesses and create a development programme to fill the gaps.

The Challenge of Being Both!
The real challenge for most of us is to manage the transition from management to leadership, not on a one-time basis (for we don’t have that luxury), but from moment to moment, day to day, as the requirements change. We need to learn to be both. To be able to do that, we need to have experienced the difference, so we can feel what state we’re in, and check that’s it’s appropriate to the situation at hand. And in answer to the question, “When will I be ready for Leadership?”, our answer is “Right now – if you really want to be!”

The workplace is filled with the turmoil of change and many people question the value of these changes. In this article I will examine the changing workplace, leadership principles, and present a call to action.

The Changing Workplace
Change is and has been a universal constant. Civilizations have risen and fallen. The Wild West in America was tamed and populated. The model T Ford was mass produced and made an affordable means of transportation. Refrigerators were invented and the ice box became history. Men traveled to the moon and back. Computers and the internet shrunk the world.
Moore’s law promises even greater leaps in productivity, quality of life, and unimagined changes.

Humans adapt well to change over the long-term. The short-term is another story.
Many people exert a measure of effort and work to achieve some status, goal, or outcome in life. When they arrive, they hold the belief that they have earned their way and now life owes them. They often become comfortable, content, relaxed, complacent, and stagnant.
All the while, changes occur around them slowly making their skills, competencies, and values obsolete.

Others embrace change, race to be in front of the wave of innovation, and find energy and opportunity in their world of work.

I have described two different types of people. One person rests on their laurels unconcerned with change. The other person exercises effective personal leadership to adapt to change.

Leadership Principles
Principles are comprehensive and fundamental laws or rules. Researching leadership principles, I found that the Marine Corps had listed 11. Other organizations had similar lists.
Examining and organizing them, I discovered that effective leadership principles in the changing world are actually unchanging. They are constants of the universe just like change. People have been exercising effective leadership principles in a changing workplace since the dawn of time. Here are the timeless leadership principles I have identified.

Life Vision
Human beings are endowed with unlimited potential and greatness. They limit their development, what they enjoy, and the success they achieve by what they learn and how they think about work and life.

Ignorance is the enemy of people developing and enjoying greater success. Destroying ignorance is called self-development, personal growth, building personal leadership, or developing mastery of your job and life.

This requires knowing yourself, seeking wisdom, and forming a vision of what you can become. That vision is essential in breaking free from the routines of work and life that trap many people. That vision must include embracing change.

Guiding Values
When you don’t know what you value, then anything that comes along catches your eye and diverts you from your vision.

List all the things that are important to you. I’ll bet there are upwards to 100 or more. Don’t worry, I had the same problem. Organization being one of my strengths and over several years of work, I finally found three foundational values to guide my work and life. They are:
Integrity – Keep every commitment that you make, even those you make to yourself. Be honest, honorable, truthful, self-disclosing, trustworthy, and authentic.

Stewardship – Be responsible and accountable for every resource you manage, be responsive, and develop and grow as a person. Manage your money, time, attitude, and people in your life to achieve the very best results. Exercise courage and risk where it counts.

Love – Love is the greatest power that exists in the universe. Love, accept, and nurture yourself first. That equips you to love, serve, and share with your fellow human beings. This means extending unconditional respect, dignity, and fairness to everyone. It’s about having gratitude, appreciation, and awe for everything at work and in your life.

Purpose
Every person arrives on this earth to fulfill a specific purpose. That purpose is unique and essential to the proper functioning and evolution of the earth. Finding your unique purpose is critical to working with your natural gifts and competencies. If you discover your purpose, your work and life will become seamless and easy. Your life will be filled with more joy and happiness.

Mission
What you do at work and in life is called your mission. You fill certain roles like husband or wife, father or mother, provider for your family, homemaker, business leader, or manager. In each role you provide specific services. Looking over all the services, some common themes may emerge. Your mission may also include the quality of your services like the standard of ‘excellence.’

Call to Action
If you are clear about the vision for your life, then you will be learning, growing, and seeking greater wisdom. In pursuing your vision, you will develop more of your unlimited potential and greatness and serve your fellow human beings more effectively.
Identifying and knowing your guiding values helps you stay on course during your journey. Without clear values you will wander aimlessly and arrive ‘wherever’. Getting in touch with your purpose gives you the big ‘why you exist.’

Knowing that, your journey has great value and can fill you with enthusiasm and passion. Becoming clear about your work and life roles, the services that you provide, and the standards of your toil, make your work and life meaningful and important to yourself and other people.

Embracing these leadership principles will equip you to adapt and even embrace the changes that are ever present in the workplace. Without this solid foundation of personal leadership, change becomes an obstacle to creating the life you were meant to live.
Developing personal leadership skills and competencies will assure that you ride the wave of change and opportunity. Embracing change, thriving on it, and growing as a person will assure an exciting workplace and life filled with success, joy, and happiness.

How are you doing? Evaluate yourself in these areas. If you find that there is a need to change, you have a choice. Stay the way you are or find a way to develop more effective personal leadership and live the life you were meant to live.
The choice is yours.

Implementing teamwork and communicating the goals for success is only half the battle in succeeding with teams. If left to nurture themselves, the business will not attain the goals set, some teams will strive for success while others might lag behind, the key is to motivate and inspire them to reach further and higher in order to keep moving forward.

In order to inspire teams, the company leaders need to implement and pass on several concepts:

1. Common Goals
The first step in inspiring a team is to make sure they understand what the business goals are, and that they understand that those goals are to be aimed for regardless of individual goals.

The common goal for the team should be consistent with the business owner’s goals for the business. Team leaders should know and understand this in order to pass it on to their team members and inspire them to reach the goal.

2. Strong Leadership
People, particularly in the workplace, tend to follow the pace set by their leaders. If the leadership of the company and team is seen as strong and confident, the team will pick up on the attitude and apply it to their work.

Strong leaders have the ability to instill teams the desire to go above and beyond what is expected of them, what has been termed ‘discretionary effort’ – extra effort provided by people when they want to provide it. Leaders can provide the inspiration for this by displaying leadership and personal humility in their professional lives in such a manner that the teams feel they have a caring and hard working leader.

Strong leaders also have the ability to be both the praiser and the scapegoat, crediting their employees when things are going well and yet taking blame for times when things aren’t going so well.

3. Defined Limits and Rules
A leader who defines the limits and rules of the company clearly and makes them openly available will create teams that understand the rules of the game and know what is expected. Companies who don’t define the values and culture of the company or the expected responsibilities of each role will find they have a company that either has to be policed by a manager which stifles teams, or they find they have a business that is running itself, which may not be in the best interest of the company.

4. Support Innovation and Ideas
Teams that are allowed to express their ideas and implement them feel more a part of the company’s growth and are more willing to go that extra mile. Business growth is about trying new ideas and taking risks, the level of creativity allowed is based on the type of business, the point is allowing team leaders and teams to reach out and offer their ideas.

6. Include Everyone in the Business
Most everyone has experienced the dreaded feeling of seeing the bosses go into a closed door meeting. Tensions rise and people start doubting themselves. While it is impossible for all employees to be included in absolutely everything in a company, it is important for teams and team leaders to feel they are kept up to speed on the company and its growth and its concerns.

Open communication is important in inspiring teams to move forward. The fear of the unknown is a powerful deflator in teamwork. Worrying about what is going on in the company can slow progress, while open communication and being included in as much as possible will inspire the teams to perform better.

Inspiring teams to reach their goals is an important part of being a business leader. Communication, strong leadership qualities, allowing ideas and having an open business model are all inspiring factors that lead to successful teams.

This is article is written and owned by Workplace Excellence, LLC.

But how could a costly project turn out to be a total loss?  Post analysis revealed that a large number of best practices in project management involving budget and activity tracking, cross-team scheduling, and communications difficulties lead to significant shortfalls that ultimately lead to the demise of the entire project.  Had the FBI followed these best practices, many of these issues could have been avoided.  In this article we will explore a number of these best practices and explain how adherence to them can mean the difference between total failure and complete success in your next project, no matter how large or small it may be.

Challenges of Project Management

A project can be defined as a venture to create or overhaul a process, product or service.  It should have a clearly defined plan with timelines, budgets and measurable deliverables that are necessary to accomplish the project’s objective.  But, in order to attain this success, the correct combination of people, processes and tools must be put in place to recognize the source of both common and unique project challenges.  Examples of these challenges include:

When a project is poorly managed, a great opportunity exists for these challenges to prevent your organization from achieving its goals or for the entire project to become derailed, as seen with the FBI.  So how can your organization protect its investments and make sure that projects are completed with optimal results?

Keys to Project Success

“A classic problem…you find yourself at the “end” of a project, 90% done, but you will have already spent 100% of the budget.  And it’s going to take the second 100% of the budget to get that last 10% completed because, the truth is, you’re not really know where you are.” – Don Shafer, Author & CTO

A successful project achieves its goals within the timeline, budget and resources allocated.  But, in order to ensure the optimum level of success, a number of key factors must be considered managed.  The first of which is effective project planning.

It is imperative that all your projects be developed with an accurate and full understanding of the current and desired state of your business.  A detailed business analysis of the problem or issue to be addressed is required to understand and determine the necessary steps towards your desired outcome.  This analysis will determine the project objective, focus and the approach for resolution.  Without a clearly defined objective established through this analysis, your project can easily go off course, fall behind schedule, exceed the budget, or ultimately fail.

Another key factor impacting the success of a project is the project plan itself.  The project plan should include an overall estimate of the time to complete the project and a detailed evaluation of the resources required.  Included in the project plan should be resource responsibilities, accountabilities, deliverables and timelines.  Additionally, it should outline related project risks that need to be assessed, monitored, minimized and mitigated.

And, although a unified goal may be established in the minds of the project team, a major key to success is the project manager.  An experienced, people-oriented project manager will be able to manage all aspects of the project effectively.  The project manager must have a clear understanding of the day-to-day tasks and resources needed to achieve the desired goals and must do an effective job of delegating responsibilities and keeping staff on track.  Utilizing the right project management tools can help manage these tasks in an efficient manner while providing accurate methods to quantify and measure the project’s success in terms of its business value.

Project Managers are Band Leaders

“Project managers function as bandleaders who pull together their players, each a specialist with an individual score and internal rhythm.  Under the leader’s direction, they all respond to the same beat.” – L.R. Sayles

A project manager ensures that the individuals involved with the project have a clear understanding of their tasks and responsibilities, and that they have access to the resources and time required to execute their tasks efficiently.  Project managers must also communicate the needs and progress of the project to the stakeholders, and be aware of potential problems and risks that may occur during the project’s progress.  Successful project managers must have:

The implications of not having an effective project manager are endless.  Without clear guidance, employees may be stressed, confused, frustrated or working inefficiently.  This can cause a project to quickly fall off schedule or exceed its budget.  Project managers are vital in preventing these issues from occurring because they are not only drivers and enablers, but also controllers.  Effective project managers also need to be able to think ahead and be able to adjust a project plan to mitigate risks and potential problems that may occur along the way.

Summary

Successful project management requires a very specific set of skills.  Challenges and issues will always arise; but when you combine effective planning, analysis and objective building with detail oriented project managers maintaining effective team oversight you can ensure that all of your projects will be delivered successfully.

“The single best payoff in terms of project success comes from having good project definition early.” – Rand Corp.

For more information, visit our website at www.omnios.com.

However, this did not come easily. Innovation has to be incorporated into an organizational culture if such revolutionary and landmark achievements are what we are aiming to achieve.

Ideally, a culture is considered as a group of opinions, attitudes, norms, beliefs, and values, while innovation is the implicit and explicit end result of the creativity and understanding of the people working within this company. However, just coming up with something that is ‘out-of-the box’ doesn’t mean that it will always work – often due to organisational circumstance, because even though an exceptional innovation can be created and brought into reality, there are often many factors which can stop this process – in it’s tracks, keeping many amazing ideas from ever reaching their production stage. With the passing of time, innovation has gone far beyond the concept of simply generating creative ideas; it’s something which can now be seen as the culture of a business. This ‘innovative culture’ can often be the difference between a ’successful’ and a ‘not-so-successful’ organization. Such a culture works toward developing an attitude of constant learning and advancement in the abilities of the employees. Every organization has its own unique culture which differentiates it from all of the others, and the success or failure of any of these businesses depends largely on how well this culture is managed. An organization with a well managed innovative culture almost always expands more rapidly than an organization without this understanding. In the case of an organization with a poorly managed culture, integrating and connecting with the innovation of a current culture is not a simple endeavour, as this requires careful planning, strategy, consistent motivation and an unflinching drive toward improvement.

Here are a few factors organizations should utilize for the integration of innovation into their culture:
1. Intellectual Property – This is the most important ingredient of an innovative culture. Regularly bringing up ideas in discussions or debates creates a continuous process of refinement, and these brain storming sessions infuse the members with enthusiasm, thereby stimulating the participants to come up with even more ‘never thought of before’ solutions.
2. Technology – Ownership of ‘tech’ and the process of upgrading these technological advancements are both other aspects which need consideration. This structure acts as an interface between knowledge and products, and is therefore responsible for the materialization of concepts from paper into tangible and intangible services.
3. Effective Leadership – Effective leaders are those who, in the organization, continuously integrate and motivate the creative thinking of their peers and subordinates.
4. Proper Communication – Good communication is absolutely necessary for making useful information available, at the right place and at the right time. Miscommunication at the smallest level in an organization can play havoc with even the most brilliant innovative idea.

To be competitive in our changing business world, businesses require their individuals to develop innovative ideas consistently. These innovative ideas can support any organization when they’re traversing difficult phases of business, as organizations can sell off such innovative ideas in a down turn of a business cycle, or take in high profits during a point of large market share.

Copyright (c) 2009 Alan Gillies

His base responsibility is as administrator. As such, he would be at the beck and call of higher-ups to handle all sorts of communication and administrative problems. At the same time, to handle these problems successfully, he also needs the midas touch in relation of personal relations with the employees of the business house. Such a high-profile position demands that he be presentable, multifaceted and capable enough to undertake multitasking.

He has to be able to co-ordinate the various clerical and managerial activities that make up such an important and responsible position. Such a position is next only to the manager of human resources and its job description entails several tasks like office organization, public relations, administration of contracts and packages of employment benefits as well as compensation and maintaining personnel records.

He is responsible for organising and updating of employee records and devise an efficient filing system. Of course, the job content of the administrator would vary across different businesses and it should be outlined very clearly at the time of hiring him.

This responsible position demands a multi-talented amicable personality as he will have to deal with employees and business customers in a very skilful way so as to establish and maintain the company’s reputation. Clerical skills are also called for as required for handling all aspects of personnel records and efficient maintenance of filing systems as well as business information. He will most likely be called upon to deal with more than one set of problems at any given point of time. So a sense of prioritisation is an essential quality. He needs to be techno-sauvy vis-a-vis maintaining of computerised records and the programs needed for their development. These all constitute the most essential pre-requisites of the administrator of human resources.

These pre-requisites are also complemented by education and previous experience. Human Resources qualifications are preferred by most corporates though some would make do with experience in administration. Some specialisation in business elements is also desirable as the administrator needs a basic knowledge of conduction of businesses. Previous human resources experience could be an added advantage to maintain efficiency and productivity of the department. At the time of recruitment of new people into the business, the corporates would always ensure due diligence so as to minimise the loss of efficiency and productivity.