1. Качества и характеристики менеджера

Our society is made up of all kinds of organisations, such as companies, unions, hospitals, etc… They help to create our standard of living and our quality of life. In all these organisations there are people carrying out the work of a manager although they do not have that title. Henry Fayole, a French man, wrote about the classic definition of the manager’s role. He said that to manage is to forecast and plan, to organize, to command, to coordinate and to control. This definition is now accepted by many people. Instead of commanding people now say motivate or direct. In most companies the activity of a manager depends on a level at which he or she is working.

Top managers, chairmen and directors are involved in long range planning and the relationships of the company with the outside world. They make decisions about the sort of product, how it should face up to competition etc… Middle management and supervisors generally make the day to day decisions which help an organisation to run efficiently and smoothly. Managers at this level spend a great deal of time communicating, coordinating and making decisions.

An American writer Peter Drucker shared his interesting modern view on managers; in his opinion managers perform five basic operations. Firstly managers set objectives; they decide what this should be and how the organisation can achieve them. For this they need analytical abilities. Secondly managers organize; they must decide how the resources of the company are to be used and how the work is to be classified. Furthermore they should select people for the jobs to be done. The third task is to motivate and communicate effectively. They must be able to make people work as a team and to be as productive as possible, in this task managers need social skills. The fourth is measurement; managers have to measure the performance of the organisation and of its staff. Finally Drucker said that managers develop people including themselves; they help to make people more productive and to grow as human beings making them bigger and richer persons.

Лидерство, личные качества лидера

Leadership is needed at all levels in an organization. The leadership qualities required by a supervisor or manager are not the same as those required by the Chief Executive of a company. A typical definition is that the leader provides direction and influences others to achieve common goals. As Peter Drusker the American writer said, leadership is the lifting of a man’s vision to higher sights, the rising of a man’s performance to a higher standard. When psychologists first studied leadership they tried to find out if leaders had special personal qualities or skills. The result of their research was disappointing; it became clear that there are no differences in qualities between leaders and non-leaders. The only thing you can say is that some qualities like intelligence, decisiveness are associated with leaders.

Fred fiddler, professor of psychology and management identified two basic leadership styles; task motivated leaders and relationship motivated leaders.

1. Task motivated leaders – tell people what to do and how to do it. Such leaders get their satisfaction from completing the tasks and knowing that they have done it well. Their priority is to get the job done.

2. Relationship motivated leaders – are more people oriented, they get their satisfaction from having a good relationship from other workers, they want to be admired and liked by their subordinates. Such leaders can share responsibilities with group members.

In a book called “The Winning Streak”, the author studied leadership in some leading British companies and they identified some characteristics of the Chairmen and Chief Executives of these companies which made them good leaders. Firstly the leaders were visible; they didn’t hide away in their head offices. Instead they made regular visits to plants and sites and talked to employees.