Michael F Staley and his Book about the Leadership and Management - Essay Example

Running Head: Michael F Staleys "Igniting the Leader Within" Michael F Staleys "Igniting the Leader Within" Inserts His/Her Inserts Grade Course Customer Inserts Tutor’s Name 28 May 2009 Firefighter department represents a unique organization faced with different emergency situations and stress. A role of company officer in the fire department requires excellent communication and management knowledge and skills based on strong personal values and morals. Effective leadership and management are the main principles of effective performance and successful work of the staff. Staley (1998) in the book Igniting the Leader Within proposes an interesting approach to management and leadership. Staley underlines that management and leadership are two essential parts of modern organizations. The fast response and emergency management depends upon and is influenced by effective management solutions and leadership strategies. Management and leadership are concerned with setting goals, establishing policies and programs, and implementing business action for the entire firm. Its major tasks are to translate consumer wants and needs, actual and potential, into profitable products and services that the company is capable of producing; to cultivate markets to support these products; and to program the distribution activities necessary to reach the markets. Following Staley, management is not merely a limited specialized activity of the business, but rather a perspective for the total management team. It does not function as a separate entity in the business, nor is it more important than any other primary activity, such as manufacturing or finance, yet through actual and potential sales it does establish constraints within which the other activities must be performed. It reflects an integrated and coordinated approach to the management of organizational activity, and the development of total systems of business action that recognize the market as the focal point of business. Great leaders have the gift for inspiring and motivating people; they have vision and lift the spirit of people to accomplish great ends. The release of human possibilities is a basic leadership goal. However, there is also a dark side of leadership. It is important to distinguish moral and just leadership from the character of despots who, by definition, are effective leaders if they accomplish their goals through persuasion (Carlopio et al 2005). Management, like leadership, is ethically neutral. Managers mobilize and allocate resources; they staff and ensure the continuing vitality of the team; they create and maintain appropriate procedures. They also direct, delegate, and coordinate, and they provide a system of incentives to motivate and encourage productive behavior. A company officer in the fire department should recognize that effective managers also establish reporting systems, perform evaluations, and assign accountability. Common to both managers and leaders is the focus on the results they produce, which are based on the goals they pursue. As they labor to bring about a result, shared values, goals. Managers and leaders call for the kind of effort, restraint, drive, and discipline that result in great performance. The traditional definitions of management and leadership have focused on and described the management process. What a manager or leader does is important, but descriptions do not address the function or purpose of management. The purpose of management is to produce positive results. Management is more than leading people. Indeed, it has many more components. Management is also routine administration, supervision, and knowledge of procedures, rules, and regulations; for instance, it requires negotiation techniques, cost control, and legal responsibilities. An important part of management is a knowledge and understanding of process and procedures, but a new definition should focus on the results to be achieved. Managerial success is measured by achievement, not by the process used to accomplish the results. Based on this results-oriented philosophy of management, the new definition of management focuses on outcome (Staley, 1998). In order to manage the fire department organization, managers and leaders should establish clear goals and principles of conduct and strict ethical standards. Setting goals establish the pathway to positive results. Deciding what it is that you want to do is the goal-setting stage, doing it is the process, and accomplishing goals is the outcome or result. The managers responsibility is to produce positive results. Setting clear, challenging goals and then doing what is necessary to accomplish them is the daily process. Success will be in measured by the degree to which a goal is accomplished, but alas, life is not this simple. Remember that managerial performance is not judged entirely in terms of success or failure. Rather, performance is measured in terms of progress in relation to the goal. The focus is on lessons learned, and learning is a core value. In this sense, success becomes a journey, rather than a destination. Managers cannot produce positive results every time. There is always room for mistakes and even failure, but there is never room for complacency or low standards. Managers can work toward positive results. Following Staley (1998): “leadership is consensus” (p. 27). In this case, the role and responsibility of leaders is to develop moral and ethical; principles for the organization, while the task of managers is to introduce these principles into practice and control their fulfillment. Results are not the only thing, and the ends do- not justify all means. There are ethical limits. Criteria beyond effectiveness are needed. Goals must be just, and there must be a moral responsibility to do what is right. Ethical conduct is a key ingredient of positive results and success. Integrity suffers when managers demand or expect from their subordinates an exaggerated personal loyalty to mission--the kind of sentiment that makes people lie or cheat (Staley, 1998). An extreme emphasis on performance as a criterion of success may foster an atmosphere of raw striving that results in brutality, be it profit, competition, status, money, or whatever. “Leadership requires that you accomplish the missions of your organization by relying on the efforts of other people” (Staley 1998, p. 30). When results become an end in themselves, the manager has overstepped the bounds of human dignity--the moderator is integrity. People are perceptive. Once a manager is judged, or even perceived, as lacking integrity, he or she is in trouble. When circumstances change and new means are called for, it often turns out that the old ones have become sacrosanct; the means have become ends in themselves--perhaps they are no longer effective, but they are enshrined. Means and ends, processes and goals must be in alignment in order to attain positive results (Staley 1998). A role of company officer in the fire department demands greater flexibility of their authority and responsibilities. The case of the fire department suggests that effective managers should possess leadership skills and abilities in order to manage modern staff. In their turn, leaders require management skills in order to foreshadow possible changes and problems within organizations. Essentially, the leadership philosophy is a way of thinking about corporate activity; a frame of mind; an attitude. It recognizes the primacy of consumers and customers as they influence all business operations. It starts with the companys chief executive, who must recognize that, lacking markets for the companys products and lacking customer wants and needs, no business can exist. Modern management and leadership cover the application of management techniques in the utilization of marketing resources. It is concerned with the responsibility for planning, organizing, actuating, and controlling marketing activities. It achieves its aims by establishing marketing objectives, policies, plans, programs, and standards, allocating marketing resources, and evaluating the effectiveness of marketing activities (Staley, 1998). In the fire department, leaders and managers can introduce training and learning courses in order o ensure high professionalism of workers. This strategy will help managers to create positive culture and organizational environment. This method emphasizes their ability to make decisions and solve marketing problems in a way that enhances the objectives of the whole corporation. The manager is a specialist in managing markets and marketing resources; production, finance, and personnel executives are his corporate counterparts. The second strategy is to introduce conflict management techniques aimed to prevent and foreshadow conflict situations. Effective leadership includes the following precepts: (1) acceptance of change as a constant; (2) recognition of the centrality of consumer wants and needs; (3) adoption of a systems approach to marketing issues; (4) recognition and application of meaningful concepts from other disciplines, and the acceptance of theoretical constructs and findings as helpful in managing marketing effort; and (5) recognition of the relationship between marketing and other aspects of management. All these changes, from the harsh competitive realities of the marketplace to the complexity of new organizational forms, pose demands on corporations to transform themselves frequently, rapidly, and effectively. These trends have made obsolete many of the traditional sources of competitive advantage, leaving organizational design and management as one of the few available sources of significant, sustained competitive advantage. It is one thing to argue that organizations need to reinvent themselves and develop new, more effective approaches to organizing, and quite another to accomplish it. Large-scale organizational transformation is, at best, a developing art that has yet to produce any clear formulas for success, but more and more attention is being turned to executives as the principle agents of change and adaptation. It is increasingly common to assume that leadership plays the crucial role in an organizations successful adaptation to a changing world (Staley, 1998). In sum, leadership and management are two interrelated concepts. The fire department depends upon effective leaders who establish clear goals for the entire organization. Proclaiming decision-making and problem-solving skills that have made them so successful, managers readily take responsibility for other peoples problems and give them back ready-made solutions. Indeed, top managers gain authority in the first place because they take responsibility and solve problems with such aplomb. Managers rarely receive promotions for providing the leadership required to do adaptive work. Management gains commitment to performance through contractual arrangements, leadership through empowerment. References Carlopio, J., Andrewartha, G., and Armstrong, H. (2005). Developing Management Skills, Pearson: Australia. Staley, M. F. (1998). Igniting the Leader Within. Fire Engineering Books. Read More

Managerial success is measured by achievement, not by the process used to accomplish the results. Based on this results-oriented philosophy of management, the new definition of management focuses on outcome (Staley, 1998). In order to manage the fire department organization, managers and leaders should establish clear goals and principles of conduct and strict ethical standards. Setting goals establish the pathway to positive results. Deciding what it is that you want to do is the goal-setting stage, doing it is the process, and accomplishing goals is the outcome or result.

The managers responsibility is to produce positive results. Setting clear, challenging goals and then doing what is necessary to accomplish them is the daily process. Success will be in measured by the degree to which a goal is accomplished, but alas, life is not this simple. Remember that managerial performance is not judged entirely in terms of success or failure. Rather, performance is measured in terms of progress in relation to the goal. The focus is on lessons learned, and learning is a core value.

In this sense, success becomes a journey, rather than a destination. Managers cannot produce positive results every time. There is always room for mistakes and even failure, but there is never room for complacency or low standards. Managers can work toward positive results. Following Staley (1998): “leadership is consensus” (p. 27). In this case, the role and responsibility of leaders is to develop moral and ethical; principles for the organization, while the task of managers is to introduce these principles into practice and control their fulfillment.

Results are not the only thing, and the ends do- not justify all means. There are ethical limits. Criteria beyond effectiveness are needed. Goals must be just, and there must be a moral responsibility to do what is right. Ethical conduct is a key ingredient of positive results and success. Integrity suffers when managers demand or expect from their subordinates an exaggerated personal loyalty to mission--the kind of sentiment that makes people lie or cheat (Staley, 1998). An extreme emphasis on performance as a criterion of success may foster an atmosphere of raw striving that results in brutality, be it profit, competition, status, money, or whatever.

“Leadership requires that you accomplish the missions of your organization by relying on the efforts of other people” (Staley 1998, p. 30). When results become an end in themselves, the manager has overstepped the bounds of human dignity--the moderator is integrity. People are perceptive. Once a manager is judged, or even perceived, as lacking integrity, he or she is in trouble. When circumstances change and new means are called for, it often turns out that the old ones have become sacrosanct; the means have become ends in themselves--perhaps they are no longer effective, but they are enshrined.

Means and ends, processes and goals must be in alignment in order to attain positive results (Staley 1998). A role of company officer in the fire department demands greater flexibility of their authority and responsibilities. The case of the fire department suggests that effective managers should possess leadership skills and abilities in order to manage modern staff. In their turn, leaders require management skills in order to foreshadow possible changes and problems within organizations. Essentially, the leadership philosophy is a way of thinking about corporate activity; a frame of mind; an attitude.

It recognizes the primacy of consumers and customers as they influence all business operations. It starts with the companys chief executive, who must recognize that, lacking markets for the companys products and lacking customer wants and needs, no business can exist. Modern management and leadership cover the application of management techniques in the utilization of marketing resources. It is concerned with the responsibility for planning, organizing, actuating, and controlling marketing activities.

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