As quoted by Peter Drucker: "Management is doing
things right; leadership is doing the right things". In today’s era, where
the world is connected and no man tends to remain aloof from this network, a
manager cannot afford to merely do what he is supposed to, in fact the
difference is, where he performs an extra effort, in generating the performance
more than what is desired from him, by motivating his employees as a leader.
The management is not limited to the art of managing the
resources, but has extended its wings to fight its battle consistently to
maintain its position. Gone are the days when companies could maintain their
strategies to remain inimitable as they were the only ones who thought
differently. Today, every moment, companies are trying to implement some “out
of the box” strategy to attract new customers and retain existing ones and
hence increase their profit margins as compared to their competitors. As
followed by HCL Technologies: “Employees first and Customers second” is the new
trend followed by most of the companies, especially the ones in service
industries. Today, a manager needs to focus on the consistent satisfaction of
employees and should devise new plans, in order to foster commitment during the
metamorphosis process of an employee’s life within an organisation. Recruiting
competent employees with the required KSA (Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities) is
the first step towards it. All the functions irrespective of the specialization
of a manager, requires a manager to himself be motivated and then in turn pass
on the “hat” (Motivation) to his followers.
In order to attain competitive advantage, firstly,
companies need to adopt the art of anticipation. Individually, each one of us
possesses this art and consciously or sub-consciously, we do indulge in such
practice in our day to day life, but in an organisation, where there are people
with different needs, motivation levels, principles and values, integration
becomes challenging. Anticipation, according to me, is the best tool by which success
can unquestionably be attained. The only fact covering this term is to be both
positive as well as negative, as we can control our internal factors (like our
resources, manpower etc.) but external factors do remain outside our scope.
Secondly, while anticipating one needs to be hungry too. Hunger about
Information is the key which needs to be followed in the path, with keeping our
senses always in incoming mode so that no information (whether required or not)
passes by, without touching our brain. Thirdly, as followed by many leading
companies like HCL Technologies, Infosys, TCS, companies need to be
value-driven. No matter what is the kind of work, an organisation needs to be
aware about its values as a whole and values of each employee too. Fourthly,
each employee needs to be allowed to express his/her opinion, irrespective of
his position in the company. This would increase the flow of new ideas, which
might lead to the modification of an existing product/service or innovation of
one. Fifthly, a manager should be more considerate to his organisation than to
himself. His relationship (according to me) with an organisation is like that
of a husband and wife. Though, problems might happen, the relationship would be
stronger when there is transparency, openness, understanding, commitment and
focus on one goal: “Prosperity”. Sixthly, too many goals hamper ones brain.
Hence, focused approach is required, so that a problem can be handled in depth
and the cancerous issue can be cut as and when it occurs.
To conclude, the decision of, the future of management
lies not only with the leader, but with each entity connected to the
organisation, beginning from key stakeholders to the society with which it is
interlinked. Thereby, if it needs to succeed, it needs to consistently rethink
what was the reason of its existence and work towards the attainment of it,
else they would remain as mere plans, as Peter Drucker said, “Plans are only
good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work”.
