Health Systems Management: Leadership and Management

Notes on the difference between leadership and management, and why the two are usually held in the same role. Leadership is taken as setting a new direction or vision that a group follows, and management as controlling or directing people and resources according to principles already established, so the two are separated by looking at instances of one without the other: leadership without management leaves a direction with no way of achieving it, an entrepreneur who grows a business by networking while a factory manager recruits staff and delivers the product, and a sports referee who manages two teams within the rules but provides no leadership because there is no new direction. Covers the absence of leadership against the leadership that calls for no action, using Gandhi's hunger strike during the negotiations for Indian independence, and participative management as a form of leadership where the direction seems to emerge from the group while the leader has facilitated it and engendered ownership. Continues with the relationship between leaders, followers and context, taking Mandela as a leader whose power came from the mass movement while his ability to act was limited, and who led South Africa into reconciliation after his release, and the democratic case where a leader elected for a given direction may lose office or provoke unrest by pursuing another. Ends on leadership styles, with being innovative and participative management worked out first as leadership and then as management - the visionary direction of setting a goal like putting a man on the moon against the creative ideas that brought Apollo 13 home - and on building awareness of one's own preferred styles to harness them and mitigate the weaknesses.