Leadership
Good leadership plays a decisive role in the success of an organization.
Many people are afraid of leading and consider leadership to be something that other people are capable of. But many people are capable of learning to lead with some training and experience. Indeed one of the most essential aspects of leadership is making leaders out of people.
Leadership Skills
There are a number of different leadership skills to be learned.
Succession Planning
Training promising candidates into future leaders so that you can move on to new responsibilities while leaving behind several people capable of fulfilling your responsibilities in your stead.
Volunteer Leadership
Coordinating, training, motivating volunteers makes the work they do personally rewarding and organizationally effective. Treating volunteers and interns like slaves is short-sighted. Volunteers that enjoy their service will recommend volunteerism to their friends which leads to sustainability for you in the long term.
Project Management
Effective project management is essential to coordinating successfully accomplished missions.
Event Organizing
Orchestrating successful events is a whole category unto itself.
Community Organizing
Business Management
Japanese Management
In 1981 Richard Pascale and Anthony Athos in The Art of Japanese Management claimed that the main reason for Japanese success was their superior management techniques. They divided management into 7 aspects: Strategy, Structure, Systems, Skills, Staff, Style, and Subordinate goals (which we would now call shared values). The first three of the 7 S's were called hard factors and this is where American companies excelled. The remaining four factors (skills, staff, style, and shared values) were called soft factors and were not well understood by American businesses of the time (for details on the role of soft and hard factors see Wickens P.D. 1995.) Americans did not yet place great value on corporate culture, shared values and beliefs, and social cohesion in the workplace. In Japan the task of management was seen as managing the whole complex of human needs, economic, social, psychological, and spiritual. In America work was seen as something that was separate from the rest of one's life. It was quite common for Americans to exhibit a very different personality at work compared to the rest of their lives. Pascale also highlighted the difference between decision making styles; hierarchical in America, and consensus in Japan. He also claimed that American business lacked long term vision, preferring instead to apply management fads and theories in a piecemeal fashion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_management 1. Avoid areas of likely confrontation. A flanking move always occurs in an uncontested area. 2. Make your move quickly and stealthfully. The element of surprise is worth more than a thousand tanks. 3. Make moves that the target will not find threatening enough to respond decisively to. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flanking_marketing_warfare_strategies
Management & Leadership
Abraham Zaleznik (1977) identified a difference between leaders and managers. He describes leaders as visionaries who inspire. They care about substance. Whereas managers are claimed to care about process, plans, and form. He also claimed (1989) that the rise of the manager was the main factor that caused the decline of American business in the 1970s and 80s. Lack of leadership is most damaging at the level of strategic management where it can paralise an entire organization.
Minions
audience posted by Agent Pugsly Sat, 2008-06-21 15:48Groups: You Decide Your Level of Involvement, Start Simple and Progress Rapidly, Viralink Industries, Think For Yourself, Repetitive Task Work, Mindfulness, Leadership, Group Organizing, Everyone Can Do Something, Consumerism, Collective Effervescence, Christian Conservationism, Apathy, Activism
Some people prefer to be in a position of non-responsibility for projects and missions going on, but still wish to participate in them productively. Sometimes a person will come to the realization that they don't have the experience to work as a peer with a person or group; sometimes an individual will crave being out of the limelights, or sometimes a person will be in so much social and/or material debt that they feel the need to preform services in order to make good on this debt (perceived or not).
There is nothing wrong with being a minion. Minions are the number one source of delegation for a project leader, usually. Most minions, especially empowered ones, will always critically analyze the things they are asked to do. As long as there is no moral interference a minion will usually preform a delegated task. The difference between a minion and a group member is realiability. Minions can be counted on to do what they agree to do just as much as a project leader, they just end up doing more support roles. Sure, speaking on stage at a confrence requires a skill but so does the tedious work of putting up and tearing down said stage.
The difference between a minion and an employee is idealism, usually. An employee will complete requested tasks because it means financial compensation for themselves. A minion generally chooses to preform tasks in order to see a project or idea further, even if they don't feel responsible for that project or don't feel competent to direct the operation in any way.
Sometimes, rarely, a person will take minion status entirely out of schedule limitations. If someone misses meetings most of the time due to schedule constraints but still show up to events and preform assistance role tasks in order to remove burden from active project coordinators they are temporarily taking the role of minion.
Volentary participation in this kind of role is called being a minion. If it's invollentary, it's called slavery.