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Management and Leadership
When it comes to effective leadership and management, there is an important question every manager should ask himself: Is it important to take care of the employees? A good manager will answer this question with a "yes," but that leads to another question: What are the required tools in taking care of employees? The answer to this is education, opportunity and mentorship.
At the very least, a manager's duty is to make sure employees meet the company's bottom line. As long as employees are performing satisfactorily and the company is making money, managers are doing their jobs. A manager who lives by this way of thinking may be a good manager, but he or she seriously lacks the qualities that make someone a good leader. Money, parts and equipment are managed. People are led.
I believe that for a manager to be a good leader, the manager has a responsibility to provide his or her employees with every resource they need to be successful. It is very important for employees to align their goals with the company's goals and for them to be able to see the CEO's vision. When Ford Motor Company began restructuring its truck plant in Dearborn, Michigan, the plant manager announced that all employees were to drive vehicles made by Ford Motor Co. to work or be forced to park across the street. (McWilliams, 2006) Did the plant manager make this statement simply to be cruel or try to force employees to purchase Ford vehicles? No. His statement defined a vision and was made to instill in the employees a certain amount of pride about the product they made. After all, it is the young employees with a vision who w ...