Don Wehby, Contributor

Wehby

I have been hearing more often these days that the Caribbean is in a leadership crisis in areas such as sports, politics and the corporate world. "We have great managers but no leaders, and no one is willing to step up and lead," a friend recently said to me. I found it to be a very profound statement and decided to do a little research of my own.

Management and leadership have been partners in the successes and failures of countries and companies from before the start of recorded history. In today's new economy, the old ways of management need significant modification. The magnitude and pressures of a global environment and resulting competitive market changes that we are currently experiencing are unprecedented. Therefore, you cannot address these new challenges with more of the same management solutions.

A good manager is one with the ability and the desire to realise a company's potential. Great managers recognise the power of competitive advantage and are fanatics in protecting and even improving their advantages. They understand the importance of effective capital allocation - namely, how they should be spending the company's money. Management styles may vary, depending on the corporate culture. Successful managers have discovered that they need to apply different management techniques or styles in various situations and to motivate different team members.

Leadership on the other hand, involves providing inspiration, creating opportunities, energising people and making key choices. A strong leader should therefore possess most if not all of the following attributes:

a strong leader should have

Strong personal conviction

Humour, perspective and flexibility

Vision

Ability to inspire

Team oriented

Knowledge of when to take risks

Drive to excel

Willingness to learn

Ability to communicate, listen and persuade

Integrity, character and honesty

It is therefore evident that you need both management and leadership. As the old proverb says "leadership is doing the right thing; management is doing things right". or as Colin Powell says: "Leadership is the art of achieving more than the science of manage-ment says is possible." The difference between leadership and management is not as sharp as the sayings suggest, and both are required for effective corporate growth.

I am a great admirer of Jack Welch, the legendary former CEO of GE, who by my assessment is the greatest business leader of his era, and I would like to share some very important leadership lessons I learned from reading his books:

leadership lessons learnt

Create a vision and then ignite your organisation to make this vision a reality.

Focus on strategic issues.

Do not micromanage.

Involve everyone and welcome great ideas from everywhere.

Lead by example.

four Es of leadership

In addition, Welch advocates that a good leader should also possess the four Es of leadership. These are:

Very high ENERGY levels

Ability to ENERGISE others around common goals

The EDGE to make tough yes and no decisions

Ability to consistently EXE-CUTE and deliver on their promises

The biggest difference between managers and leaders is the way in which they motivate the people who work with or follow them, and this sets the tone for most other aspects of what they do. The biggest similarity, however, is integrity: Integrity involves 3 Rs: Respect for self; Respect for others and Responsibility for all our actions.

Leadership and management are two distinctive and complementary systems of action. Each has its own function and characteristic activities. Both are necessary for success in an increasingly complex and volatile environment. While increasing their ability to lead, companies must understand that strong leadership with weak management is no better, and is sometimes actually worse than the reverse. Therefore, the real challenge is to combine strong leadership and management and use one to balance the other.

Don Wehby is the deputy CEO of GraceKennedy Limited and & CEO - GK Investments.