A leader is a good manager, and a good manager is always a leader. These two concepts become inseparable, and you should not think that real leaders are needed only at the head of the company. According to Kseniia Valieva, it is important for any enterprise that all employees who lead each separate area of activity have leadership qualities.
– I must say that a leader does not necessarily have to have subordinates, – clarifies K. Valieva. – We are talking about a manager who primarily manages processes and is able to change them, adapting them to modern requirements. And whether subordinates are needed for this or not is already a question of the second order.
Therefore, a manager and leader does not necessarily have to be a person who “waves a checker”, whose commands are unconditionally followed by everyone. But he must necessarily be a real professional in his field, able, firstly, to understand what goals should be set for himself at the moment, and secondly, to be able to achieve the set goal.
Kseniia Yudina singles out four types of leadership characteristic of different stages of the company’s development. Each of them forms its own type of management. If you carefully analyze each of them, you can understand how important it is to clearly define what stage of development the company is at. After all, the wrong choice of the type of management can also turn out to be the restraining factor that will not allow setting the correct tasks, and therefore will restrain the natural evolutionary process.
Four types of leadership (according to Yitzhak Adizes)
- Manufacturer
The management style required at the initial stage of the enterprise’s formation. And here the manager plays the role of a nanny for most of his subordinates, who must be taught, instilled in them with the necessary professional qualities, etc. In general, most managers who had to raise a business from scratch passed through this stage.
- Administrator
As a rule, it appears when the company’s business is already starting to improve and there is a need to streamline the actions of the entire team. Some standards are established, planning and periodic reporting are introduced, schedules are developed (receiving applications, shipments, etc., if we are talking about a logistics company). Usually, the application of the administrative style leads to the optimization of processes for the enterprise, which enables working more efficiently. The main elements of the administrative style can be applied in the long term. However, when the company moves to the next stage of development, the attention of leaders shifts from administration to strategic business categories.
- Entrepreneur
At this stage, the leader is required to be able to “see through the fog”, i.e. to identify areas of business development that have not yet appeared on the market, but will certainly provide new opportunities in the future. The current process has already been established, and the manager no longer gives it the main attention. Instead, it focuses on strategic planning. According to Kseniia Valieva, this style of management allows for timely implementation of innovations, which helps the business “not to perish” in the vortex of another crisis.
- Integrator
He focuses on corporate values, which incredibly increases the value of the brand. Ensures stable development in the long term.
What should a leader be like?
– After it is determined at what stage of development the business is, what goals it sets for itself and what management style is most acceptable for it, it is necessary to pay attention to the personality of the leader, – Kseniia Yudina continues. – In the specialized literature, you can find many arguments that a real leader must be decisive, enterprising, able to boldly introduce innovations, understand his employees, etc. But let’s immediately agree that there are no perfect people in nature. And it is unlikely that we will find at least one manager who actually has all the qualities that some theorists attribute to him.
