Leadership

What is a Leader?

The lines and definitions of leaders and managers may seem somewhat blurred and confusing. Just who or what is a leader? At times it is useful to think of leaders as developing vision while managers oversee tasks. It is also true, however, that whether you are the CEO of large company or the manager of a small department, you are a leader. People in your company or in your department are going to pay attention to, and most likely follow, the example you provide in taking on your responsibilities and carrying out your tasks. The guidance you provide as a leader is in the how, why, what you do, as well as in what you say.

Management is doing things right;
leadership is doing the right things.


An extensive study on successful and unsuccessful organizational leaders found that, while attributes and styles of successful leaders varied widely, there are two things successful leaders do that are common. Successful leaders initiate structure and show consideration.
Employing an Innovative Leadership Style

Initiating structure means setting clear priorities and goals, establishing an organized approach to accomplishing the work, and allocating the resources effectively and properly. Showing consideration means recognizing people as individuals with lives, interests, and needs outside of the workplace that need to be recognized, accommodated, and even encouraged. Effective leaders don’t see their team members as identical functioning cogs.

It seems intuitive that successful leaders initiate structure and show consideration. Being innovative in these important areas, though, plays a significant role in how successful they are as leaders.

Successful leaders provide clear direction and individual appreciation to encourage workers to contribute toward reaching organizational goals; innovative leaders have the ability to make people want to contribute to reaching goals. It may seem like a small difference, but that could be the difference between achieving standards and setting new standards.

If you’re looking for a definitive description of innovative leadership, good luck. Like good art; it can be difficult to explain but easy to recognize. Most would agree, however, that innovative leaders are willing to try to new approaches and to think in different ways. They understand that at times failure is part of learning. They keep their eye on the horizon as well as the bottom line. They tend to see the inherent and potential value of organizational operations instead of just the cost

Kaizen - The Japanese Strategy of Continuous Improvement

What is Kaizen?

Kaizen means "improvement". Kaizen strategy calls for never-ending efforts for improvement involving everyone in the organization – managers and workers alike.


Kaizen and Management

Management has two major components:
1. maintenance
2. improvement

The objective of the maintenance function is to maintain current technological, managerial, and operating standards. The improvement function is aimed at improving current standards.

Under the maintenance function, the management must first establish policies, rules, directives and standard operating procedures (SOPs) and then work towards ensuring that everybody follows SOP. The latter is achieved through a combination of discipline and human resource development measures.

Under the improvement function, management works continuously towards revising the current standards, once they have been mastered, and establishing higher ones. Improvement can be broken down between innovation and Kaizen. Innovation involves a drastic improvement in the existing process and requires large investments. Kaizen signifies small improvements as a result of coordinated continuous efforts by all employees.

Process-Oriented Thinking vs. Result-Oriented Thinking

Kaizen concentrates at improving the process rather than at achieving certain results. Such managerial attitudes and process thinking make a major difference in how an organization masters change and achieves improvements.

Small Improvements Add Up

Kaizen, translated literally, means good change. Kaizens represent a philosophy whereby organizations, and the individuals within it, undertake small, incremental,continual improvements of all aspects of organizational life.

A kaizen program encourages employees to spot and implement improvements around the workplace, no matter how small. Not only does this program put a systematic method in place that implements and communicates employees suggestions for improvements, resulting in a more productive workplace, it also

• Creates an atmosphere were employee suggestions are valued
• Makes employees more vigilant in looking for improvements
• Creates awareness that even small improvements are important
• Provides a system where such improvements are communicated to other employees