Reading resource: Northouse, P. G. (2021). Leadership: Theory and practice (9th ed.). SAGE. ISBN: 9781544397566.
The concepts of leadership and management are said to be similar yet, very different. Please discuss how the two concepts are both, similar and different. Additionally, please discuss which you feel is most critical to the field of public safety and why. Please be sure to incorporate Biblical concepts/passages into your response.
You will post one thread of at least 350 words you must support your assertions with at least 2 scholarly citations in APA format.
Watch: Leadership vs. Management: Which is most critical?
PADM and 510. This is Fundamentals of Public Safety Leadership Module 1, leadership versus management and leadership. There are many definitions because out of leadership has been defined for more than a 100 years now, early definitions were similar to the following. The ability to impress the will of the leader on those lid and to induce obedience, respect, loyalty, and cooperation. Recent leadership focuses upon a number of different traits and qualities, such as authentic, ethical, spiritual, discursive, humble, inclusive, and many, many more. Leadership and management are quite similar, yet they are also quite different. Leadership and management are both concerned with goal accomplishment, but there are still many differences. Management emerged around the 20th century with the industrialization of society. The primary focus of management centers around the concepts of planning, organizing, staffing, and controlling. And as a manager in the field of public safety, these are concepts that you will deal with on a regular basis. When considering the concepts of leadership and management, it's important to remember a few different things. The leader generally innovates, wealth manager generally administrate. The leader focuses on people, while the manager focuses upon the systems and structures of the organization. Leaders are generally less focused on how to organize people to get the work done, but more focused on finding ways to influence them to get the work done. And finally, managers are focused on tasks and activities that move an organization towards a particular goal or objective. When thinking about leadership and management in the field of public safety, remember that both are necessary. The use of either is dependent upon the particular situation. Now when the easel leadership and when to use management, know and understand that difference and determine which is most critical for you and your organization at that particular moment in time. In closing, I would like to leave you with this verse from Galatians 69. Let us not become weary and doing good for at the proper time, we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. And by the great Dr. John Maxwell, a great leaders courage to fulfill his vision comes from passion, not from physician.
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SIMON SINEK: Leader versus Manager
There are two things that I think that great leaders need to have, empathy and perspective. And I think these things are very often forgotten. Leaders are so often so concerned about their status or their position and organization, they actually forget their real job. And the real job of a leader is not about being in charge. It's about taking care of those in our charge. And I don't think people realize this and I don't think people trained for this. When we're junior, our only responsibility is to be good at our jobs. That's all we really have to do. And some people actually go get advanced educations so that they can be really good at their jobs, accountants or whatever, right? And you show up and you work hard and the company will give us tons and tons of training how to do our jobs. They'll shows how to use the software. They'll send us away for a few days to get trained in whatever it is that we're doing for the company. And then they expect us to go be good at our jobs. And that's what we do. We work very hard. And if you're good at your job, they'll promote you. And at some point, you'll get promoted to a position where we are now responsible for the people who do the job we used to do. But nobody shows us how to do that. And that's why we get managers are not leaders. Because the reason our managers are micro-managing us is because they actually do now, How do they do, do the job better than us? That's what got them promoted. Really, what we have to do is go through a transition. Some people make it quickly, some people make it slowly, and unfortunately, some people will never make that transition at all. Which is we have to go through this transition of being responsible for the job and then turning it to somebody who's now responsible for the people who are responsible for the job. As I said before, one of the great things that is lacking in most of our companies is that they are not teaching us how to lead. And leadership is a skill like any other, is a practice level, learnable skill, and it is something that you work on it It's like a muscle. If you practice it all the days, you will get good at it. You will become a strong leader. If you stop practicing, you will become a weak leader. Like parenting. Everyone has the capacity to be a parent. Doesn't mean everybody wants to be apparent, and doesn't mean everybody shouldn't be apparent. Leadership is the same. We all have the capacity to be a leader. Doesn't mean everybody should be a leader. And it doesn't mean everybody wants to be a leader. And the reason is because it comes at great personal sacrifice. Remember, you're not in charge, you're responsible for those in your charge. That means things like when everything goes right, you have to give away all the credit. And when everything goes wrong, you have to take all the responsibility. That sucks, right? It's things like staying late to show somebody what to do. It's things like when something does actually break, when something goes wrong, instead of yelling and screaming and taking over. You say, try again. When the overwhelming pressures are not on them, the overwhelming pressures are on us. At the end of the day, great leaders are not responsible for the job, they're responsible for the people who are responsible for the job. They're not even responsible for the results. I love talking to CEOs and say, what's your priority? And they put their hands on their hips. I'll privately say my priorities by customer. I'm like really even talk to a customer in 15 years. There's no CEO and the planet responsible for the customer. They're just not. They're responsible for the people who responsible for the people who are responsible for the customer.
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LEADERSHIP
This is the time when we can have a rebirth in leadership and seize the opportunity to reform management practices in our public institutions.
Management vs. Leadership in the Public Sector
by Alvin William Musgrave Jr.
What does it mean to manage in government? Is that different from lead- ing, and if so, what is that difference? Can managers be leaders? It is time to rethink management and leadership in the public sector.
With public trust in government at a low ebb and agencies struggling to do more with less, there has never been a greater need for leadership at all levels of government. We need a new paradigm for rethinking government management, one that can generate and empower new leaders at all levels and inspire a new generation of professionals to a calling in public service.
Today’s Leadership Imperative In 1985, Warren Bennis lamented in his book, Leaders, “We desperately need women and men who can take charge, and we hope that you the reader, will be among them.” Bennis set the stage for his book by defin- ing a national context of “dispiritedness” rising from the prior 20 years of “….assassinations, the Vietnam War, Watergate, corporate crimes, and untenable domestic and international conditions.” Fast forward, and just as Bennis looked back 20 years and saw a dreary picture, today’s perspective is similarly depressing: the tragedy of 9/11, 10-plus years of war in Iraq and
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Afghanistan, corporate scandals, the Great Recession, and the devastation caused by hurricanes and tornadoes.
Government executives are growing weary and risk- adverse. Public confidence in government is at an all-time low when government faces myriad challenges. Just as Bennis saw in 1985, we have a desperate need for lead- ers today in all sectors of society, and in particular in our public institutions.
A Back to the Future Landscape On January 20, 1961, President John F. Kennedy cap- tured the imagination of the nation in his inaugural address, saying “And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.” His leadership spawned a new era in public service, during which the Peace Corps was launched and NASA sent astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the moon and back.
In contrast to Kennedy’s message of government service, President Ronald Reagan charted a radically new course 20 years later when he said in his inaugural address, “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”
Following Reagan’s call for smaller government, the political process has continued “government bashing.” Notwithstanding political beliefs, public managers are faced with major issues that must be addressed: con- fronting the effects of global climate change; rebuilding obsolete infrastructure; reforming education; reforming healthcare; addressing poverty; protecting people against crime and terrorism; reforming immigration, and project- ing American interests in peace and stability around the world. It will take innovative leadership and skilled man- agers to address such issues.
We are in the midst of a struggle for the soul of America. However, viewing America’s growing talent pool, demographic shifts, the rapid advancement of innovation, and an improving economy, a strong argu- ment can be made that “the glass is half full.” This is the time when we can have a rebirth in leadership and seize the opportunity to reform management practices in our public institutions. With inspired leadership, govern- ment agencies can alter the effectiveness and efficiency of their institutions around these four trends.
Millennials Think Differently Today’s recent graduates, the Millennials, born between 1979 and 1994 and growing up in the age of the Internet,
think differently about jobs and careers. As reported in Forbes, Millennials will represent 75 percent of the global workforce by 2025. Most are tech savvy and want to work for a company or entity that encourages some form of global or community social responsibility.
Technology Advances Rapidly We have seen a blinding pace of technological change with the Internet and the ability to communicate with one another and retrieve information. This has brought dra- matic improvements in human productivity, and more new frontiers are unfolding with a pace of change unlike any- thing humanity has experienced. What is coming over the next 10 years in healthcare, manufacturing, transportation, energy, agriculture and the “Internet of everything” will sig- nificantly alter the way we live, work, and organize activities.
Unbundling Bureaucracy, Empowering People Because of rapid environmental change and the need for agility in addressing challenges and opportunities, com- panies are making radical shifts in traditional top-down organizations. Organizational cultures characterized by a “command and control” approach are being replaced by cultures of innovation with emphasis on teams, dis- tributed leadership, decentralized decision making, and cooperation and interaction across functions.
Shifting from Linear to Creative Because of the pace of change, organizations are shift- ing to agile planning approaches. In a Harvard Business Review article, Steve Blank points out that “lean start-up practices” are taking place within large, established pri- vate companies.
Reshaping the Organizational Culture of Public Institutions Traditionally, government has been about hierarchy and structure, process and procedures, and order and discipline. The challenge facing government is that it has little choice but to capture many of the lessons being learned by innovative private-sector organizations about adapting to a rapidly changing world. The ques- tion is how.
The figure shows a transition where, as the govern- ment organizational model transitions from a top-down approach to a team-based approach—with empowerment, agility, and stakeholder engagement—the emphasis on leadership versus traditional management is on the rise.
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While this may sound utopian and not applicable to the real world of governmental organizations, consider the flawed rollout of the Affordable Care Act website. The problem was resolved by a team of software engi- neers who knew what they were doing and were given the authority to do it. With the right leadership and manage- ment approach, rollout out of Heathcare.gov could have run more smoothly and not become a debacle.
A New Future in Public Management In thinking about a recommended transition path to a more effective future in governmental organizations, I see five steps that leaders at all levels can embrace. These steps hold the potential for catalytic long-term improve- ments in management practices in the public sector.
Improve the Self-Image of Public Servants Researchers cite the power of the Pygmalion effect or self-fulfilling prophecy: We become what we can envision ourselves to be. It takes leadership to give people a positive view of themselves, allowing them not only to rise to the occasion, but to feel better about themselves in the process.
One of the important ways professionals in govern- ment improve their self-image is by engaging their stake- holders. The purpose of government is to serve. The more that government professionals have the occasion to inter- act with their external stakeholders—those they are there to serve—the more their self-image is enhanced.
Several years ago when I was running The Enterprise Network (TEN) of Silicon Valley, I invited a representa- tive from the IRS to talk to a group of our entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs learned about taxation to ensure that their ventures were in compliance, and they also learned that the IRS is not “the enemy.” I suspect also that the IRS representative went away with an enhanced self-image after talking to this group of entrepreneurs.
When government leaders send their personnel out beyond the organization to engage stakeholders, an extra
“kicker” in self-image is generated and an enhanced appre- ciation by the public of government can be gained as well. A great example of this is the way the military services engage in humanitarian missions following natural disas- ters, and young men and women engaged in combat zones help to rebuild housing, schools, and infrastructure in sup- port of the citizens they are fighting to protect.
Increase the Use of Teams Teams are incredibly powerful in many ways, but it takes leadership and initiative both to form them and to nur- ture their continued existence. Much of today’s creativ- ity and innovation is being spawned from the energy in teams, particularly those that reflect diversity.
At San Jose State University, I have been using team- based learning, including team-based exams, in all of my classes, and I am seeing a major increase in student enthu- siasm and learning. We are all affected in positive and negative ways by those around us. When we are a member of a properly formed and nurtured team, we are energized and our individual capabilities are magnified synergisti- cally. Government leaders can exploit the power of teams in their organizations in many ways at many levels.
Increase Risk-Taking by Senior Leaders We must instill in managers and leaders the motiva- tion to think and reach beyond the status quo, to have a mindset of continuous improvement. One of the leaders
I had the privilege of serv- ing under who did just that was the late Rear Admiral Claude P. (Bud) Ekas Jr., USN, who would challenge us to think “the art of the possible.” One of the ways to institutionalize increased risk-taking is to empower professionals, decentralize
decision making, and shift more responsibilities to teams through a distributed leadership approach.
Maximize Opportunities for Inter-Organizational Cooperation It takes strong leaders to decrease organizational paro- chialism and to imaginatively reach out and seek oppor- tunities for inter-organizational cooperation. The more that public-sector leaders forge interagency programs, public-private initiatives, and integrative programs among
Teams are incredibly powerful in many ways, but it takes leadership and initiative both to form them and to nurture their continued existence.
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federal, state, and local levels of government, the more that synergistic results are achieved.
As the Internet blurs organizational boundaries and the world of big data provides insights and understand- ings that we can hardly imagine today, opportunities for cross-sector and interorganizational cooperation will increase at an exponential pace.
Engage in Creative Outreach in Recruitment of New Public Sector Talent To tap the next generation of government professionals, high school and college students need to hear recruit- ing messages that tell a positive story of public service. NASA is setting an excellent recruiting example with science fairs and internships, even for business students. When Janet Napolitano headed the Department of Homeland Security, she made an inspirational impres- sion by promoting the need for computer science gradu- ates to serve in cybersecurity.
The resounding message from our public managers to our students needs to be what touched my generation 50 years ago with Kennedy’s inspirational call to public service. If our public leaders can deliver such a message of service again, today’s young talent will listen and respond.
Create a New Era in Public Leadership The public sector is the keeper and protector of American ideals and provider of common services critical to a prop- erly functioning society. In an environment of declining resources; an increasingly complex, dangerous, and rap- idly changing world; and a public that has a diminished view of the role and performance of the public sector, public managers have little choice but to embrace a new philosophy of leadership.
Public-sector professionals need to be empowered and inspired. We must create innovative programs and processes to excite American youth about careers in pub- lic service.
We must envision new pathways to mission success. It is time to turn our best minds and energies to making the transition to a new era of leadership in the public sector.
Alvin William Musgrave Jr. teaches entrepreneurship, management, and organizational behavior at San José State University. He is a retired U.S. Navy Captain, has held senior leadership positions in industry, and has MBA and DBA degrees from The George Washington University. Contact him at [email protected]
Transitioning to a New Leadership Model in Public Management
* Differences between management and leadership selected and adapted from Richard L. Daft, Management, 2014.
Phase I
Emphasis on vertical flows and functional structure
Phase II
Plus team structures & horizontal flows
Phase III
Plus agile organic structures & empowerment
Phase IV
Plus stakeholder engage- ment, permeable boundaries, inter-organizational initiatives
M an
ag em
en t E
m ph
as is Organization Culture from Bureaucracy to a More Organic Environment
Management Environment*
• Rational
• Maintains stability
• Assigns tasks
• Organizes
• Analyzes
Leadership Environment*
• Visionary
• Promotes change
• Defines purpose
• Nurtures people
• Innovates
• Uses personal power
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.