Session 2

This week’s discussion on management versus leadership was very enlightening. I immediately began classifying my coworkers and peers based on these two categories. There are those who just facilitate and there are those who innovate. From my experience, the leaders are those individuals whom aren’t satisfied with mediocrity. They usually think outside of the box and strive to make a name for themselves and their organizations. It seems to me that the key ingredient separating the two is passion. In most cases, great leaders are very passionate about what they do.

Throughout my professional career I’ve encountered many great leaders and managers. I’ve worked alongside individuals who had extraordinary work ethics and were great at what they did, but didn’t seem to love what they did. They viewed work as a routine and perfected their trades, yet never strived to further advance their careers or organizations. I’ve also worked with individuals who questioned everything and constantly challenged themselves to improve processes and procedures. The funny thing is that some of these leaders wouldn’t make good managers and visa versa. Leaders’ willingness to take risks and their unorthodox way of thinking could jeopardize a company’s stability.

I once worked for an individual whom I would classify as a decent manager. They seemed to be happy as long as the company was running and there was no shortage of clientele. They acted as if they were passionate about the business, but I believe that this was in large part an act to keep the workers motivated and potential clients interested. They would propose ways to improve business and would create a buzz, but never followed through with any of the propositions. We did at one time make a large technological purchase in attempt to increase our corporation’s effectiveness, but this was not a wise decision in my opinion because we didn’t have the staff or type of clientele to support and utilize the technology. My supervisor was not technologically savvy and was easily persuaded into making purchases by different vendors. They had the resources and knowledge to make our business very successful, but there was no drive to follow through with proposed plans because I feel that they were not genuinely passionate about the business.

Activity report:

This week I began researching my projects and the resources that I will need to complete them. I have most of the tools that I will need to complete my tasks. I will be further researching software options for my first project and will begin familiarizing myself with the functionality of these programs. I will also be meeting with the Director of the Center that I work for to discuss the details in my 2nd and 3rd projects. I will finalize my project plans and post them in full detail prior to the end of this 3rd week.