Management and Leadership Principles Peter F Drucker

Management and Leadership Principles Peter F Drucker Introduction about Peter F Drucker Peter F Drucker, the father of modern management was a social commentator and preeminent business philosopher. Born on November 19, 1909, this management consultant wrote books and other scholarly articles, exploring the ways in which businesses; governments and the non-profit sectors of society get organized. His distinction between management and leadership has been a popular topic for debate for several years now. Leadership doing the right things Leadership acts as a tool in settling on the best course of action to take- what are the things that should be done to reach our targets? But according to Druckers philosophy, leadership is strong and successful when the leader thinks through questions like Of those things that would make a difference, which are right for me? By doing the right things, he meant that effective leadership is considering the companys mission, describing it and openly establishing it. It is a leaders job to set clear goals for the company and define the standards needed to be maintained while achieving the goals. Being aware that he is not in control of the universe, he has to make compromises. This, however, he does once he has thought of the right and the desirable. Drucker defines leadership as mundane, unromantic and boring. Its essence lies in performance. Effective leaders keep on checking their performance against the achievement of their goals. This practice helps them to analyse their choices and decide on what is important and needs immediate attention. It also assists them in identifying their strengths and recognizing their weaknesses. Regarding this, Drucker says: I have seen a great many people who are exceedingly good at execution, but exceedingly poor at picking the important things. They are magnificent at getting the unimportant things done. They have an impressive record of achievement on trivial matters. Setting the right kind of goals plays a significant role in developing a successful leader. It is of extreme importance to set realistic achievable goals which fit in with the overall mission, keeping in mind the external constraints such as political, economical, and financial and internal constraints such as the current resources available and the interpersonal issues. In accordance with this statement of his, lies the aspect of responsibility within leadership. Rank and privilege is not the core to leadership. It is, in fact, the sense of responsibility that the leader feels and exhibits that represents strong and reliable leadership. Hence, a successful leader is one who takes initiative to tackle a task and uses the given resources optimally to derive maximum benefit. Drucker claims Americas chief of army staff in World War II, General George Marshall, became a productive leader through responsibility and diligence. Such kinds of leaders do not fear the self-determined subordinates. Instead, they encourage their juniors, assisting them to reach their potential and accomplish all that they are capable of. Being ambitious for a leader is far smaller a risk than being mediocre. An effective leader is also aware of the consequence that organizations face in case of the leaders impeachment. In regard to this, Drucker rightly says: An effective leader knows that the ultimate task of leadership is to create human energies and human vision Drucker at one point stresses over the effectiveness that every leader is expected to possess. Be it in a government agency, a hospital, a business, a labour union, a university or army, a leader seems to bear high intelligence and imagination only seconds it. Yet he lacks the vital link between his effectiveness and his intelligence, imagination or knowledge. However, many leaders come in contact with the dangerous near successes traps which usually revolve around the mindset that one big push is all that is needed now. At such a stage, a leader should critically ask himself: When should I stop pouring resources into things that have achieved their purpose? This clearly shows that an essential leadership task is knowing when something has been used to its fullest, with maximum benefit derived. Once this is discovered, a good leader would know that now is the time to stop and move on to newer things because there are no more returns to be enjoyed. To this, Drucker claims to have advised his friend Rick Wareen, in these words: Dont tell me what youre doing, Rick. Tell me what you stopped doing. A successful leader also manages to earn the utmost trust of his followers. This does not necessarily mean that the followers are expected to like him and agree with him at every point. Instead, Drucker finds the reflection of it in the term integrity- followers should know that their leader means what he says. He should be a man of his words. Hence, leadership calls for congruency in beliefs, words and actions. And it should be consistent as he says: Effective leadership- and again this is very old wisdom-is not based on being clever; it is based primarily on being consistent. Management doing the things right Management as an institution has emerged rapidly and has had a huge impact so far. It has altered the social and economic structure of the developed countries. It has also impacted countries which participated in these economies as equal. Few executives recognize the tremendous force that management has. According to Drucker, management follows leadership. It involves doing what has been pointed out by the leader. It is not a bag of techniques and tricks. Neither is it a bundle of analytical tools such as those taught in business schools. Management, with its successes and problems, is rather based on a few basic principles: Management is about human beings. It is a critical, determining factor for organization which teaches people to perform with cooperation, capitalize on their strengths and ignore their weaknesses. Management is rooted in culture since it involves bringing people closer in a common venture. Finding parts of history, tradition and culture which can be used as the management elements is the basic challenge faced by the managers in developing countries. Commitment to common goals is essential for any enterprise to function successfully. Clear objectives defining a common vision is a prerequisite to its success. A manager is expected to think carefully and then set objectives, goals and the values to be demonstrated which he can later exemplify. Once the manager has identified a well rounded mission statement and goals and communicated it effectively at every level of the organization, there is a good chance that the venture will succeed. This is because all employees will have a sense of direction which will make them aim at a common objective. Growth and development of the enterprise and each of its members also results from management. Training and development should be established on all levels of institution. Communication and individual responsibility are the basis upon which any enterprise flourishes. All the people working in it, from different backgrounds and possessing different skills, should be working towards reaching a common aim, cooperating with each other simultaneously The quantity of output does not depict the performance of management and neither that of enterprise. It is in fact elements like market standing, innovation, productivity, development of people, quality and financial position which give a clear picture of the performance and survival of an enterprise. The enterprise is different with regard to its insides and outsides. The result only exists on the outside, which, for a business would be a satisfied customer. Lying on the insides of an enterprise are only its costs. Managers who understand these principles and adopt them in their course of action will develop into achieving managers. Thus by doing the right things, Drucker meant that a perfect manager is one who gets things done efficiently. Management has different dimensions to it and one of these is managing people. Drucker initially believed that there has to be one well defined way to manage people. But the work of Abraham H. Maslow in his book Eupsychian Management deeply influenced him and he became an immediate convert. Maslow had given enormous evidence about how different people should be managed in different ways. Argument Comparison It has been quite a fascinating debate as to whether leadership and management can co-exist. Other similar questions in this context are concerned with which of the two is more important. Evidence suggests that both are vital for any organization. And both can co-exist. In fact, the relationship between leadership and management can be described as being interdependent. By comprehending the difference between the two and sticking to their core structure, a leader and a manager together, can make the workplace much more productive. Stephen Covey demonstrates the difference between leadership and management by observing the pattern of functioning of a corporate leader. He spent most of his time managing day to day operations. To ensure maximum production, he worked with his managers, engaging with them. This was prior to learning about leadership. Once he got enlightened with the whole idea behind leadership, he quit taking care of the day-to-day operations. Instead, he explored the trends, examined data and began investigating ways for his company to remain competitive. In order to achieve this, he began setting strategic objectives for growth. As a result, corporate profits rose beyond 50% within a year, after years of sluggish pace at which the company grew. This example visibly shows how leadership diminished when the leader was trying to fill a managers place too. Once he established strong leadership with focus on the achievement of strategic objectives, his company further progressed. Thus, it verifies that management is all about assessing the strength and weaknesses of people and assigning them adequate tasks to reach the optimum output (efficiency) where as leadership involves defining the set of actions needed to finish off those tasks and provides the drive, creates the energy to remain focused (effectiveness). Drucker at one place said: Effectiveness (leadership) has to do with quality-the right direction; and efficiency (management) has to do with time. Conclusion To conclude, it is justified to say that both leadership and management are much more broad terms than perceived. Both are equally complex institutions, but nonetheless, essential for any organizations success. For an organization to succeed, it is vital that they find a balance between the two institutions, i.e leadership and management. This is because only if both the functions are effectively performed can a business operate in this competitive environment. Both are important jobs. While one gives the corporation a sense of purpose, the other provides it with the push in the right direction. Thus, Peter Drucker has accurately pointed out differences between the two and has given the professionals an insight to the fundamentals of an effective leadership and an efficient management system, which when coupled can lead a business to new heights of prosperity.

Facebook and Student Essay

People use Facebook for many reasons; some of them consider it the vehicle to communicate with their friends, including old friends or current friends; some agree that it also helps them relax when they are stressful; others, on the other hand, might argue that Facebook brings distractions to them (Facebook 101). For instance, my friend, a quite person, did not socialize with people in both real life and in the Internet community. However, after knowing Facebook in a short period of time, he became addicted to it. He used most of his time to chat with friends, to play games, and to stare at his Facebook profile. Now, his friends list comes up to 300 and he daily logs on Facebook from 3 to 4 hours a day. Hopefully, this research of our group will help college students get better understanding of the role of Facebook in students’ lives. Moreover, not only students in general but also people of all ages will gain their cognitive of the advantages and disadvantages of Facebook. The research will benefit reader to determine whether Facebook is good or bad for human being. Furthermore, if people use it as a habit or want to check of how frequently they use it, they could apply this research as an important source to figure out whether they are addicted to Facebook or not, or where they are in the rank. Hypotheses: Our research paper is mainly focused on the impacts of Facebook on BHCC students. The effects will be discussed on both negative and positive sides of Facebook. First of all, we predict that Facebook will mostly bring negative effects on students and employees. If they use it so repeatedly, they might be addicted and cause distractions in working or studying. This is already proved in the story of my friend. Secondly, because of the separation of geographies or busy life, people tend to talk less and type more in this modern life. So, we also want to check it out of how many percentages that Facebook occupies our private lives. The last assumption will mention about privacy threat on Facebook. On the other hand, besides of its negative, our group wants to observe how people use Facebook effectively since it is the most useful communication tool to most people. Research Method: Our research was done with the survey format of 22 questions. We developed questions with many concerns about Facebook. All the questions were related directly to our purposes, which are substitution of social life, distractions to school/work, privacy theft, and communication tool. Approximately each category will cover from 4 to 5 questions to get into deep understanding of the aspects. Each of the questions shows the list of answers for participants to demonstrate their thoughts. When we provide the survey to participants, we are not stay close to them to make sure that they could feel comfortable when filling the questions. We are not going to record any participants’ names and to remain them anonymous. To do that, we could get the answers honestly and that would serve the expectation of our group. Participants and Procedure: Our group met several times for the research very carefully to discuss what we would do for the plan. First, we decided to work on Facebook but it was such the general issue for us whether to go on its good or bad sides. Properly, many college students just see advantage sides but they do not perspective of its side effects. Hence, we combined both sides, and decided that we would concentrate more on the negative effects of Facebook. After gathering all the questions of each member, we filtered and arranged them in order in the survey. To collect and choose which questions are suitable for out hypotheses, it took us almost two weeks to come up with all agreements. Understanding that people are hesitating to help our research, the reasons are vary as they are in rush, they are lazy, or even they do not want to listen to what we talking about. Furthermore, we targeted on BHCC’s college student, so we finally chose to go to the BHCC’s library or started with our other classmates to get the results. Moreover, we provided our team members spent a week conducting the survey to ensure that they could do the project thoroughly. Especially, we already created Facebook group account for our members to share, to debate, and to discuss and make sure we were on the right track. Surprisingly, the results came out our pleasure: BHCC’s students were eager and happy to help us when asked to fill out with Facebook questions. However, very few numbers of participants answer our  survey quickly and unready, so we already ignore those minorities. Data Results and Analysis: Our group had a total of 162 surveys, which were added by all of our group members. In our last question we asking people about â€Å"What would you rather describe Facebook as?†, and the result did not surprise us, we already knew that as an assumption. More than half of our participants –118 out of 162 or 73 percent of total result– consented that Facebook as a useful communication too. Some of them added that they used Facebook to communicate with friends and families, to share pictures, videos, status and information, or to kill time if bored; therefore, most of them choose to pick its good side as an answer. The last 27 percent, 44 of 162, chose â€Å"a powerful distraction† as the result (Figure 1). As you can see on the chart (Figure 2), it can explain why three-fourth of our participants prefers Facebook as useful tool (Figure 1). There are so many ways to use Facebook that suite with people interests. The majority of participants use Facebook to check mail, to chat, to communicate, and to update friends’ information as 97 of 497 (19%), 80 of 497 (16%), 75 of 497 (15%), and 62 of 497 (13%) respectively. Besides that, 4% users also log in Facebook for playing games/quizzes, and 9% use it for relaxing when bored. It is interesting that there are a small number of participants – 11 students, approximately 2% in total – choose Facebook as a studying tool. As we mention above, Facebook is also distractive at work and school, and the statistic already proved this. 56 percentages – slightly above half of the percentages — access to Facebook at home, 21 percentages and 4 percentages do that at work and school. The rest 19 percentages access by cell phones; even though we do not know exactly where they use them, we indicate they are not properly use them at home. (Figure 3) According to the results from survey, we divided this bar chart into two categories: addicted group and non-addicted group. The first group includes many times/day, more than 2 hours/day, 1-2 hours/day, and 3-5 hours/week. The other is 1-2 hours/week and less than an hour/week. Both groups have  nearly equal balance about 50 percent each; therefore, we could have more trustful information and it is not bias. (Figure 4) After all, we conclude BHCC’s students are not really addicted on Facebook. They contribute equally in both studying/working and relaxing on Facebook. We agree that Facebook right now is the most popular use in the world and it is on the way growing up, yet it still cannot replace other multimedia communications like phones in general, instant messengers, and in direct with person. In the figure 5, Facebook occupies the smallest percentage in the pie chart with 17%. The next two common ways of communicating with friends are using instant messengers like Yahoo, AIM, MSN, or Skype (19%), and socializing with friend face to face (18%). Absolutely, instant messengers and in person have theirs advantages in communication because we can listen and talk simultaneously, or even we can see our partner faces by webcams. The largest percentage is using phones which are 46%. They are still the most familiar way to exchange all the time by talking and texting. We assume that because of its lack of â€Å"live† features like those above, Facebook still cannot be a substitution in personal life. Figure 6 and figure 7 show us â€Å"How many friends are there in participant friend’s list?†, and â€Å"With how many out of your Facebook friends do you frequently communicate?† People tent to protect their privacies by having fewer friends than ever on Facebook, 53 percentages and 35 percentages are chosen to have less than 100 friends and from 100 to 200 friends in friends’ list (Figure 6). In there, 25% and 50% is the most common rank to contact with friends on friends’ list, approximately 52 percentages. The next best option is less than 25% with 31 percentages (Figure 7). Our results in the survey proved that people do not really want to socialize usually on Facebook; they just need Facebook to relax, not the place for them to put their personal information. In the next graph will show how Facebook users think of privacy when using it. (Figure 8) More than half of our respondents do not want to add unknown people as friends, about 70% (Figure 8). This could be explained, if they add them as friends, they do not contact with them on Facebook, according to figure 7. Generally speaking, people do not want to express themselves on social network. Conclusion: The result of doing this survey gives us better interpretation of how a social network could affect on people life. Especially BHCC’s students, they adopt and love Facebook’s features, but they could still control their time spending on it. Therefore, most of the students consider Facebook a helpful tool to socialize with others. Even though Facebook is good for students to communicate with other people and make their social life happier, sometimes, Facebook appears to be a distraction to their study and private life. Using Facebook too much can make student exhausted and also affect their health badly. In addition, it is important to realize that Facebook is only an online tool, and it cannot replace human being’s activities. Students should allocate their time spending on studying, socializing, and using Facebook effectively, so that they can balance their real life and their online life to avoid being distracted by any network. Limitation: Even our team has done with the research, but it still has limitations when doing this. Due to the lack of processing time and missing experience in each member of us, we extend more time on choosing questions, or picking for secondary research, and then filtering the result as well. The amount of seven weeks seems not enough for us to accomplish a professional research as others. In addition, funding is also significant too. Because we did have any fund for the research, so we mainly focus on BHCC college’s students and limit on the number of respondents. In our questionnaires, we would want to ask more questions about how distractive in performance of workers and students at Bunker Hill Community College, and we desire to collect more information from school staffs and professors. However, our results from the participants are appropriated because of respondent’s excitements and their honest answers. We are glad that they did cooperate very well with us. Works Cited N.p., n.d. â€Å"Facebook- The Complete Biography† Web. 13 May 2010. . â€Å"Facebook 101: Ten Things You Need to Know About Facebook.† EBSCOhost. Ed. Thomas Krivak. Information Today Inc. 2010. Web. 01 May 2010 .

Why Do Youths Join Gangs?

Teenagers often struggle to define themselves and their place in the world. They may choose to associate with a certain group because its members share similar beliefs, attitudes or interests. However, teens also look to others to fulfill their basic needs for such things as companionship, understanding and emotional support. When these needs are not met sufficiently or at all by the teens family, they become susceptible to joining gangs. A gang is a group of individuals who share common traits. They are often identified by the clothes or colors that they wear and have a name. Gangs are composed of leaders and followers.They typically have their own methods of communication such as language, symbols, signs or handshakes. Joining a gang requires potential members to go through an initiation of some sort. Initiations into gangs often include the endurance of physical harm or engaging in some form of illegal or dangerous behavior, failure to give proper gang hand signals could lead to a beating. There are many reasons why kids join gangs, but like most youth activities, whether criminal or otherwise, most kids join gangs for companionship and love, social, economic, and cultural forces push many adolescents in the direction of gangs too.Most commonly, teens become gang members to fill their need to belong. Oftentimes, such teens have dysfunctional families or are loners. Gangs are looked to for protection, loyalty and a sense of identity. Members consider themselves part of a family and view their gang as a source of pride. Gangs may fulfill the need for acceptance and recognition as well. However, members are required to do such things as steal from local stores, corrupt buildings with graffiti and engage in other crimes. The drug trade is harsh and dangerous.Lower rung drug dealers do not drive BMW's, wear gold jewelry, or get rich quick. They work around the clock, six or seven days a week, for low wages, often enforced by the threat of violence. Gang murders a re committed to increase profits, to control renegade members, and to protect existing territories and markets. The more cunning and brutal the gang, the better its chances of success. One misconception about joining a gang is the thought of getting rich. Some young people think gang members are rich, drive expensive cars, and don’t have to work. However, very few gang members get rich.Most of their money goes in one hand and out the other to support flash and style rather than for living. Drug dealing is actually hard and dangerous work. Dealers are always on the job. Many use pagers so if someone wants to buy drugs they can get in touch with them at any time of the day or night. They are always on guard, watching for police or rival gangs. They are constantly in danger of being killed. The odds of surviving are not in their favor. Prevention efforts can deter teens from joining gangs. The focus of such efforts is on an individuals sense of identity and belonging.The allure of gangs tends to be most persuasive among outsiders with low self-esteem and poor impulse control. Integrating teens into groups based on common interests provides a positive environment for self-development to occur. Teens should be encouraged to go to community centers and after-school activities which allow them to associate with other teens. Efforts to strengthen family relationships are also helpful, since teens tend to look outside their families when needs for such things as acceptance, belonging, recognition, protection and loyalty are not met at home.

The Political Writings Of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke And...

The political writings of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau focus a great deal of their work discussing various views of the state of nature, and the human nature for the establishment of political authority. These three theorists have many differing opinions of the purpose and reality of the state of nature, the purpose of government and the impact of founders and how men secure their rights. In the Leviathan, Hobbes believes that the state of nature is a constant state of war where reality does not exist. The state of war brings the necessity for all individuals to live their lives in a constant state of fear, and that all men are equal because the weakest man has the capability to kill the strongest. Due to the premise that the state of nature is a constant perpetual war, government must only control and provide law and order and not represent. In The Second Treatise of Government, Locke provides a much different account of the state of nature. Locke believes th at all men are equal in the state of nature, and have the equality of freedom to do what they wish. Locke’s state of nature is not particularly a good or bad one. However, Locke believes that man’s natural rights are their property and their liberty and freedom, and that government should do what is necessary to protect that. Locke also believes that the establishment of political authority is best protective to the people when they are elected by the people and are responsive and accountable toShow MoreRelatedEvolution and the Modern Social Contract Theory : Essay Outline1050 Words   |  5 PagesThe Emergence of the Modern Social Contract Theory Essay Outline POLS 14033 – Political Ideas and Ideologies The Emergence of the Modern Social Contract Theory Essay Question: Firstly, in this essay, we will describe and analyze the various concepts of the evolution and emergence of the modern social contract theory thru the analysis of several of its key political thinkers. 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