Thursday, August 27, 2009

Real Management Needed

We're overled and undermanaged. As someone who teaches, writes, and advises about management, I hear stories about this every day: about CEOs who don't manage so much as deem—pronouncing performance targets, for instance, that are supposed to be met by whoever is doing the real managing.


Read all of Henry Mintzberg's Business Week article here.

2 comments:

Rob said...

I liked the bit at the end of the article "As Stanford University emeritus professor James G. March put it: "Leadership involves plumbing as well as poetry." Instead of distinguishing leaders from managers, we should encourage all managers to be leaders. And we should define "leadership" as management practiced well.
You cannot just decide to be a great leader and do a few expensive courses, and get a certificate. A leader gains their qualification and respect from their subordinates, generally from doing their job well.

Michael Wade said...

Rob,

It will help when we stop thinking of managers as sort of a lower caste and instead consider management and leadership as responsibilities.