High Performance Management - Chapter Two - Literature Review - Part 2

2.2.2 Kotter
Kotter (1990, p.85) in his article “What Leaders Really Do” writes that “leadership isn’t mystical and mysterious”; nor does it have anything to do with “charisma or other exotic personality traits”. Furthermore; he states that “leadership is not necessarily better than management or a replacement for it” but “two distinctive and complementary systems of actions” that cannot function without the other in a changing world. He continues by saying that “both are necessary for success in an increasingly complex and volatile business environment”; one that continues to constantly change today some 18 years since his article was first published. According to Kotter; “management is about coping with complexity” (p. 96); an approach introduced by the “emergence of large organisation” (p. 86) in the twentieth century. Kotter continues to write that without good management these organisations would became chaotic (p. 86) hence good management was required in order to bring some “degree of order and consistency” (p. 86).

Kotter’s depiction of a manager supports those views expressed by Zaleznik in 1977; which would no doubt have had a big influence on Kotter’s own view on the subject. However, Kotter in his article provides more support for the need for more leaders compared to Zaleznik because as Kotter (1990) explains, managers and leaders cannot function without the other since managers “promote stability while leaders press for change” (p. 85). Imagine an organisation where only managers were present; where no one has tomorrow in mind. Therefore there would be no one pressing for changes such as entering new market segments to have access to new opportunities and revenue etcetera. On the other hand, if an organisation consisted only of leaders, the current business may suffer in that leaders may neglect the current activities of the company that got it to where it is today. It would therefore be detrimental if today’s business dried up suddenly, before tomorrows opportunities were ready to not only replace, but increase the company’s value – but by then it may be too late to recover.

Kotter (1990, p.86) therefore concludes that both leaders and managers are required within an organisation. Contrary to the arguments put forward by Zaleznik as well as other literature that “people cannot manage and lead”; Kotter notes that organisations are trying to develop “leader-managers”. However, according to Kotter “not everyone can be good at both leading and managing” meaning there will obviously be those who are “excellent managers but not strong leaders” and those who have great leadership potential but have difficulty becoming strong managers. One could therefore argue that Kotter implies that; (a) some managers have excellent leadership skills and lack management skill; (b) excellent management skills and lack leadership skills; (c) excellent leadership skill with good management skills and (d) excellent management skills with good leadership skills. According to Kotter (1990, p.86), it is better to have good management skills with weak leadership skills than to have good leadership skills with weak management skills. One would therefore deduce Kotter’s views based on the evidence provided that an individual cannot be equally competent at both leadership and management. However, Kotter does not present any evidence to support the view that an individual cannot be both a manager and leader.

2.2.3 Mintzberg
Mintzberg (1990, p.1) writes that we don’t fully understand what managers do. Furthermore managers often describe themselves using words such as “plan, organise, coordinate, and control”; yet they do other things that are outside the description of these traditional words. He goes on to say that in the rush to apply technology and science to management, “the person in charge of the organisation or one of its subunits – has been forgotten”; the manager. Therefore, in order to really discover what managers did, Mintzberg carried out research on how various managers in various sectors and countries spent their time during their working days. He goes on to say that his findings will be “obvious to anyone who has ever spent a day in a manager’s office, either in front of the desk or behind it”.

Figure 2.1 – The Manager’s Role (Mintzberg 1990, p.4)

As seen in Figure 2.1, Mintzberg (1990) concludes, based on the evidence he found, that “the manager’s job can be described in terms of various roles, or organised sets of behaviours identified with a passion” (p. 3). By various, Mintzberg presents 10 roles that he has identified that managers performed based on the data collected during his research. In further explaining the 10 roles, he states that “formal authority gives rise to the three interpersonal roles, which in turn give rise to the three informational roles; these two sets of roles enable the manager to play the four decisional roles” (p. 4). Mintzberg therefore proceeds to justify the 10 role concept by pointing to quantitative data such as the amount of time managers spent doing things such as ceremonial duties; implying that they were performing a “figurehead role” (p. 4). Or that they were performing a “leader role” in that managers carried out duties such as hiring, firing, motivating and aligning employee needs with the goals of the organisation” (p. 4). The evidence presented by Mintzberg in his article “What managers do” adds considerable weight behind his conclusion suggesting that leadership for example is but one aspect of the manager’s 10 roles. With this particular view in mind, one can only conclude that Mintzberg is suggesting that managers and leaders are the same person. Mintzberg therefore has not attempted to measure the performance of a manager or a leader because he is suggesting that they are the same individual. This particular viewpoint may have influenced the views of others such as Turk (2007) who suggests that leader-managers yield better results in terms of performance and financial.