Organizational Communication Research VII

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Economics, Management, and Financial Markets 11(1) 2016, pp. 143–151, ISSN 1842-3191, eISSN 1938-212X

LEADERSHIP VERSUS MANAGEMENT

IN PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS

IONELA GABRIELA SOLOMON [email protected]

Bucharest University of Economic Studies CARMEN COSTEA

[email protected] Spiru Haret University

AUREL MIRCEA NIŢĂ [email protected]

National University of Political Studies and Public Administration

ABSTRACT. Over time the concept of leadership was analyzed from different perspectives. Some of them refer to human relationships that are established under it, others are focus on management as a process. The article analyzes the evolution of the concept of leadership, the differences between management and leadership, and challenges that may arise in the management process within a public institution, namely public administration in Romania. This article aims aspects of leadership in public administration such as: the application of this concept in the decision-making process, and the changes that are taking place in a public organization. JEL codes: H00 Keywords: leadership, management; public organizations; public administration; competencies

1. Introduction “Leadership involves the art of working with people. Knowing how to lead does not mean knowing how to dominate, but to know how to convince people to work for a common goal” (Goleman, 2002: 222).

Professor Mielu Zlate (2004) defines leadership as “the process by which a person establishes a goal or a direction to one or a certain number of people, and determines them to act with competence and full commitment to their realization.”

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The term “leader” was used for the first time in the XIV-th century, according to The Oxford English Dictionary. Over time, the term leadership has taken on several meanings. According to Explanatory Dictionary of the Romanian Language, the meaning given to this term is “management” or “directorship”.

The leader is an individual who determines the meaning and direction of a group, gets the group cohesion, and then manages to motivate the group in order to achieve the desired results. From this statement it can be detach the components of the concept of leadership. The main element is the person who leads. The second, equally important, is the group. We cannot speak of leadership and leading function, without a group of followers. A leader without a group of followers is a “crazy loner” (Zlate, 2004). Another fundamental element that we can findif we study the definition of leadership is the goal; leader in theprocess of leading, follows the goal, that must become common, and have to be reached by the group after a certain period of time.

The leader quality does not refer to the way he presents himself, but to the manner he manages to exploit the powers of a group (Petca, 1999).

When we speak about leading a team in a business or a company, the style of leadership is very important in ensuring success. Each of the leaders will use at a conscious or subconscious level, a certain style of leadership: autocratic style, the bureaucrat style, charismatic style, democratic style, the people-oriented style, helpful style, task-oriented style, the style of transactional leader, or the transformational style.

2. Types of Leaders. A Literature Review In literature there are many interests to characterize leaders. W. Bennis’s vision of a leader is the one of a “social architect”, a transformer of an organization that has the ability to create a global vision and to translate it into action (Petca, 1999).

According to Goleman’s vision (2007), we have the following typology of leaders: visionary leader, counselor leader, peer leader, democratic leader, promoter leader, dominator leader.

Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries identifies two main types of leaders, namely: the leader as a “chess player”, who makes strategic moves and the second type, the leader as a person capable of addressing to collective imagination of the people, in order to attract them towards the right path. Those leaders, from the second category, motivate people in their activity, action that leads to further efforts to achieve various objectives. Apart from the two leader types described above, the author states that there is a third category of leaders, namely “illusion-leaders” or “leadership as an illusion.” People who

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support the existence of this “leadership as an illusion” are not interested about who is in charge. They consider the leader as a puppet manipulated by other forces surrounding (Kets de Vries, 2003).

Although there are many types of leaders, in practice we focus mainly on typologies such as formal leader, informal leader, democratic leader and autocratic leader.

It prevails the professional opinion, that if we turn to autocratic and participatory character of the leader, we notice: first, autocratic style requires authority. This type of leadership pays special attention to authority relations, the hierarchy of direct subordination, setting the objectives first, establishes and maintains a climate of austerity, confidence in the potential of subordinates, who are treated as mere participants in their work; they seldom delegate and consult their subordinates or, most often they avoid this activity.

3. Leadership versus Management The terms “leadership” and “management” are often used with reference to the same concept. In reality, the two concepts are different, although they have many common elements and activities aimed at improving the organization.

Warren Bennis, in his “On Becoming a Leader”, identifies eleven differences between manager and leader, as quoted below:

 “The manageradministrate, while the leader innovates.  The manager is an image while the leader is the original.  The managermaintain while the leader develops.  The manager focuses on systems and structure, while the leader

focuses on people.  The manager relies on control, while the leader relies on trust.  The manager has a short-term view, while the leader has a long-term

view.  The manager answers the questions like ‘Where?’ and ‘How?’ while

the leader respond to ‘What?’.  The manager is focused on the immediate results, while the leader is

guided by medium and long-term results (impact).  The manager imitate while the leader creates.  The manager accepts the status quo, while the leader is challenging

it.  The manager is doing things ‘how they should be done’; the leader is

doing things ‘that have to be done.’”

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We believe that this characterization, though the two concepts are defined accurately, sometimes it might seems exaggerated, since, in practice, we meet managers who have a vision on a medium term regarding their organization (as in strategic management, where the manager is setting target). Meanwhile, the characterization is enlightening in terms of membership of the two concepts: the manager belongs to formal organization, while theleader belongstoinformal organization.

As for the differences between a leader and a manager, there are many arguments. They are generally based on the personal behavior of the manager and leader, but also on how they manage to convey their ideas to the people they work with.

“There is no equivalence between the leader and manager. Ideally, all managers are good leaders, but it is not binding. In fact, the manager exercises his influence on the team he leads and determines it to act in a particular way to achieve those objectives. Especially in business, success depends largely on the ability of leaders to convey the vision and enthusiasm. It is believed that quality of leadership is essential but not sufficient for a successful management” (Păuș, 2008: 17).

4. Management and Leadership in Public Administration Public and private organizations, are complex entities whose structure cannot be understood outside the influences of environmentanalysis where is performed their activity. These influences seem to be stronger in the case of public organization, due to their characteristics.Leadership in government is characterized by an intentional process of influencing, motivating and directing a group of people to a common goal. The process of influencing is done in a consciously and deliberately way, by a leader. From this point of view, influence can be seen as “a person’s ability to affect the behavior of others. The successfully use of influence may cause changes in opinions, attitudes and beliefs and of course, behaviors” (Cornescu, 2000: 94).

Strategic management is seen as acomponent of a public manageractivity thatconsists in broadening the action to “think ahead” for the entity he leads. It contains two aspects: defining objectives, strategy, structure and operating principles for this entity; measuring theimpact in space, time and context, of an important decision that is taken (John, 2000). Any manager/leader must ensure the daily activity forthe team he leads, this being translated into short- term outlook, which is known as operational management. The manager also acts intended to broaden perspectives, in order to create a horizon of collective activity on the medium and long term; this area of concern being designed in strategic management. From here it is inferred that the strategic management concern the public servants located in positions of

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responsibility, from middle and top management (Nita, 2014). According to this model of management, the head of agovernmental institution, shall not apply a stereotypical activity since his activity is directly connected to that level where strategic decisions are developed.

To be efficient, the public management must take into account: the general factors (social, economic, political), the specific factors in each organization, personal factors (convictions and personality of the manager). Leadership describes a new model of public civil servant, who is seen as a true agent of change, serving to introduce a new mentality in Romanian public administration (Nita, 2014).

Public manager is considered the new type of manager, running the government. This function involves the presence of features rarely found among ordinary civil servants, and the degree of responsibility that it involves is higher than the officials have. Even in that case, the position of public manager is very important for government and for its future. This is why, according to Art. 10 of the Rule of implementing Government Emergency Ordinance no. 92/2008, regarding the status of civil servant called public manager, there are set by law, the competences necessary to a public manager as follows: (1) The competition aims to identify and select those that demonstrate skills and competencies and a minimum of general knowledge relevant to public administration, required to obtain the status of a public manager. a) the eligibility conditions set out in art. 6 para. (2) of the Ordinance; b) the ability to use the information and interpretation of data, to formulate conclusions and substantiation of administrative decisions; c) the ability to establish and formulate objectives, and identify logical sequence of actions to achieve a specific purpose; d) capacity to take decisions and to assess their impact; e) the ability of analysis and synthesis; f) communication skills; g) the degree of motivation for specific public office manager; h) owning skills other than those referred from b) to f) as appropriate for a public manager; i) knowledge of the principles, rules, organization and functioning of public administration; j) the knowledge of principles, rules, organization and functioning of the EU institutions, namely Community policies; k) foreign languages.

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5. Challenges to Current and Future Leadership in Public Administration The function shows the types of problems attributed to a manager or a leader, as a result of horizontal management specialization process and indicates the right of a manager to use the resources available within certain limits, specialization as a result of vertical management process. The characteristic of government can be classified according to several criteria, namely: - The material criterion as activity requires the study of legal, human, financial, usable in performing tasks; - Organic criterion determines the description of specialized agency types; this means, enumerating the administrative structures, such as those of central bodies of public administration.The most rational criterion is the one of finality, namely the technical and specific purpose pursued with each task. These goals can be classified in terms of geography, according to the territory where these are achieved. The tasks carried out by central government bodies have general importance, being performed in the same manner throughout the country. Other local tasks are limited to a county or city, aiming to satisfy specific social requirements.

Based on the purpose criterion, we can say that leadership is oriented toward public institutions, to increase the efficiency of the activity, decision- making process and solving public needs, increasing the efficiency of the executive management, judicious use of labor, and to reduce to a minimum the number of administrative officials.

The administrative decision is a complex process of choosing a possibility from several possible choices, in order to achieve an objective of government and influence the activity of at least one person in the system, to influence the administrative system in its entirety or just society in general. Any administrative decision must meet the following requirements: to be scientifically; to have a realistic character; to intervene in a timely manner; to be integrated in the overall administrative decisions taken previously; to be appropriate.

We define two categories of participants in the foundation and administrative decisions, depending on: the involvement in decision-making - civil servants that are directly involved, civil servants and citizens indirectly involved and/or professionals involved directly or indirectly; by administrative level, we define position in the organizational structure, there are public servants from central and local government (John, 2000).

From a political approach to decision making, there can be distinguish these characteristics: consideration of policy objectives, the existence of political coalition, and theexistence of problemspackages.

Most relevant challenges seem to be related to the status, the position of the leader, the position they occupy, by displaying the following trends:

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employee’s performance evaluation through selection and evaluation activities, but sometimes, it include grievance and disciplinary cases. In all other situations, the focus is not on individuals, but on the positions, organizational structures, procedures or groups of persons. Evaluation of individuals in terms of their business performance requires a certain quality of managerial judgment, which places a great responsibility on the managers involved in training of civil servants. The efficiency of public services in administrationstate is primarily determining the quality of staff. A system of public administration, staffed with sufficient financial and material resources, but with unpreparedprofessional and managerial officials, do not get the results suggested (Androniceanu, 2008).

Any organization needs information in order to survive or to act successfully. Organizational change includes the actual content of the change that occurs within them. In addition to these two dimensions, the context of organizational change is as important as the “content which formulate a strategy must control both the context in which the process occurs and the process itself” (Vlăsceanu 1993: 93).

The success of organizational change depends on the quality of the solution found and the effectiveness of its implementation, which can have three consequences: (1) implementing effective, the use of innovation or change improves organizational performance; (2) implementing effective, but the organization’s performance is not affected in any way; (3) implementation is not successful. Change can have negative effects if the solutions are inappropriate to the context, which does nothing to highlight, once again, the lack of interdependence between content and process of change.

The leader in public administration evolves on the same principles as any other leader. Each group has the responsibility of achieving the goals of the organization they belong; each has a set of qualities used to achieve those goals. The leader in public administration however, is not only responsible for the group to which it belongs, but with all those affected by decisions taken within the group. The entire population of a territory may benefit or suffer because of the decisions taken by the leader of that administrative entity.

This leadership aims to meet the needs of the general public and its objectives should be focused on this direction. The leader appeals to the charisma and persuasiveness or other talents in order to achieve the desired results.

A good leader in public administration has a good sense of responsibility and is aware that his decisions can affect in one way or another, the citizens and is ready to take responsibility for his acts and decisions.

A good leader knows when to take a decision, when isthe right moment to act and whenhe can anticipate certain results.

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He must have an honest character and to be devoted to his actions so he can bring prosperity to the area the leader is responsible of.

6. Conclusion The public administration in Romania is in the process of reform, tending towards a post-bureaucratic system, system to form leaders with vision, with decision-making power.

New government leaders should be aware of the importance of human resources. Any effort to implement this concept in administrative reform get us closer to achieving an administrative system, based on modern management, which is responsive and loyal to the citizen needs, in whose service public administration should be. It is time for public administration to develop a source of authentic leaders. It is agreed or not, the perception according to which, we should borrow the concept stated in the private sector on how to form successful leaders.

Regardless the leader’s typology, we note that at this attitudinal behavior people’s skills are different, with different emphases placed on the triple objectives-results-rewards/sanctions. The most effective types of leaders are those with a high professional and managerial competences, with solid knowledge coupled with management qualities and skills that will enable them to promote and maintain appropriate relationships with subordinates.

Public management means not offering fixed successful recipes that just apply step by step; but it can change essentially the perception of the administrative phenomenon and administrative action. The solution to solve the problems facing public administration in Romania depends essentially and cannot be conceived outside its action.

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