The success of any organization depends upon both good management and good leadership. The question facing managers is, “When am I to lead, and when am I to manage?” Miriam Kragness, Ph.D., author of the Dimensions of Leadership Profile published by Inscape Publishing, offers some guidelines to help managers respond to this dilemma.

According to Kragness, the management model focuses on the command and control functions. These include planning, executing, evaluating, communicating, and m… Continue

To be a leader, someone needs to be following. To know if you are a leader, take this test. Look over your shoulder. If there is no one there, you are not a leader.

You are a leader when others choose to follow you. It is the followers who make you a leader. This requires that you have the ability to induce others to follow your lead, even in the face of changing circumstances and fluctuating needs.

To assume and retain the lead of a group requires flexibility and versatility. Flexibility is t… Continue

A leader moves people to create that which does not yet exist. This requires moving from the known into the unknown. This can be frightening for leader and followers alike. As the pressure mounts, the leader is increasingly tempted to surrender to the fears. A critical trait of leadership is courage.

The first step in developing the courage to lead is to become aware of your fears. Self-knowledge precedes self-management. Only by knowing your fears can you manage your response to them.

What ul… Continue

Organizational learning has been promoted as a necessity for organizations expecting to contend with today’s rapid pace of change. The question that comes to mind, though, is what are organizations to be learning?

Peter Senge, who popularized the concept of organizational learning with the 1990 release of his book The Fifth Discipline, defines the learning organization as one “that is continually expanding its capacity to create its future.” According to Senge, “A learning organization i… Continue

The typical image of the leader is of one who is strong, certain, and commanding. There are times, though, when certainty and seriousness must be disrupted if there is to be growth beyond what is. It is during such times that who is needed is the leader as clown.

The clown and trickster figures in mythology break through taboos, create chaos and disorder, disrupt the fixed and staid. Tricksters initiate change and becoming. They shatter boundaries. In Paleolithic times, trickster was the archet… Continue