THE LEADER-MANAGER

A Leader- Manager can lead and manage himself, others and also at the same time lead and manage change.

He must have the capacity and ability to perform key tasks and responsibilities that are associated and expected both in the area of leadership and management with excellence. He develops clear goals and deliverables and help his team connect with it by making it meaningful.

He also exercises control holding people accountable and willing to have tough conversation and if needed take tough actions to manage performance.

In doing these, the Leader-Manager follows the following areas in his tasks and responsibilities.

A Leader-Manager must first be able to know how their responsibilities play a role in the company’s purpose and mission. A business organization is an economic organ and as such a Leader-Manager must act on all his decision, action and deliberation with economic performance as its core. A business organization can only justify its existence and authority only by economic results that it produces. A business organization is unsuccessful if it fails to produce economic results. It must supply goods and services desired by the customer at a price the customer is willing to pay while at the same time, ensuring profit. A Leader-Manager therefore must be clear that his tasks and responsibilities rest on the wealth producing capacity of the economic resources entrusted to him i.e economic performance as the number one mission.

A Leader-Manager can only achieve economic performance if his subordinates do productive work. The one true resource of business enterprise is their human capital. An organization can only perform if their human capital performs. A Leader-Manager therefore must be skilled in getting the best from his people.

He does so by making them happy and performing. To get them to be happy and performing, the Leader-Manager helps his subordinates achieve. Achievement is the drug and fuel for self-motivation. A Leader-Manager can achieve this if he sees and considers his subordinate as first a human being and not just a pawn or resource to move around as he pleases.  A Leader-Manager takes into account their dreams, aspirations, personality, capacity, skills, how much and how well they know their job, what it takes to motivate them to participate, why they do or not do things, etc.

A Leader-Manager duplicates success. He is quick to transfer knowledge from one person or one group to another. He makes it a point that his top talents share information be it in the area of Innovation, Marketing, Duplication or General Management. He provides and encourages an environment where best practices are noted, celebrated, shared and made into the organization’s culture. As such, the organization is constantly moving forward and upwards. Picking up best practices along the way and making ordinary people extraordinary. The Leader-Manager does not condone silo mentality.  He creates systems, processes and structures so that duplication becomes a culture and set as the DNA of the organization.

A Leader-Manager administers well while at the same time is an entrepreneur. He redirects resources from areas of low or diminishing results to areas of high or increasing returns. He moves resources from non-producing to more producing ones. He is efficient and effective. He does things right. He also do the right things. As an entrepreneur a Leader-Manager develops a business from the ground up by creating ideas and turning it into a profitable business of tomorrow. It requires systematic analysis and hard work today.

One of the most important aspect of a Leader-Manager is the ability to manage two time dimensions. He must balance the short term and long term. The Leader-Manager must always consider both the present and future – the short run and the long run. He cannot squeeze the organization and its people for immediate profit, losing sight of the long range health and the survival of the company while at the same time cannot live in a dream of a lofty tomorrow but fail to cross the immediate finishing line. This will terminate the life of the organization prematurely. The work of harmonizing the long range impact and the short run economic decisions covers all areas – innovation, marketing, duplication and general management. He ensures the business organization performs both in the present and in the future. He must be able to run the business of today while at the same time prepare changes for tomorrow. A Leader-Manager must always do both.

Last but not least, he manages the social impacts and social responsibilities of the organization. He acts as the organization’s brand custodian and ensures the image and position of the company are taken care at all times.

Anas Zubedy.

Kuala Lumpur.

Ref : Peter Drucker’s management ideas :)