Thesis on true leadership

FIRM LEADERSHIP W/ STRONG MANAGEMENT IS REQUIRED FOR FIRM’S CONTINUOUS COMPETITIVENESS DEVELOPMENT

US IDEA

US CULTURE

individual, masculine, low power distance, low uncertainty avoidance (Geert Hofstede)

US STYLE. To brake the line happens, when nro.2 eg. COO will move from management process into CEO in leadership area.

FIN IDEA

FIN CULTURE

rather collective, rather feminine, low powerdistance, high uncertainty avoidance

FIN STYLE

Concept of true leadership or visionary is not clear in Finland as this type is kept as "village crazy". In addition Finns think that management deals with issues and leadership with people. This is very narrow idea and results that the most firm leader or introvert visionary is not used, but kept in sidelines.

J.KOTTER/HBS/BW 08/31/92

Firm leadership is an ability to work in changing environment.

Strong management is an ability to cope with complexity

A.ZALEZNIK/HBS EMER/HBR 03-04/92

"Managers and leaders are very different kind of people. They differ in motivation, personal history, and in how they think and act. Managers work in problem solving to coordinate and balance opposing views to reach consensus. Leaders work in the opposite direction. Where managers act to limit choices, leaders develop fresh approaches to long-standing problems and open issues to new options. To be effective, leaders must project their ideas onto images that excite people and only then develop choices that give those images substance.

In considering the development of leadership we have to examine two different courses of life history:

• Development through socialization, which prepares the individual to guide institutions and to maintain the existing balance of social relations, and
• Development through personal mastery, which impels an individual to struggle for psychological and social change.

• Society produces its managerial talent through the first line of development.
• leaders emerge through the second.

Leaders tolerate chaos and lack of structure and are thus prepared to keep answers in suspense, avoiding premature closure on important issues. Managers seek order and control and are almost compulsively addicted to disposing of problems even before they understand their potential significance. Seldom do the uncertainties of potential chaos cause problems. Instead, it is the instinctive move to impose order on potential chaos that make trouble for organizations."

BUSINESS LEADERS HAVE MUCH MORE COMMON WITH ARTISTS, SCIENTISTS, AND OTHER CREATIVE THINKERS THAN THEY DO WITH MANAGERS.