Step into my office…

Aidan says:

07:50am | 26/08/11

Leaders are born managers are born too but usually have a professional—-technical skill - a three day workshop is probably two days too long!

acotrel says:

05:20am | 27/08/11

In workplaces there is a valid mathematics of the type 1+1 = 3 !  Teams are much more productive than people working alone !

acotrel says:

05:26am | 27/08/11

In my life, either as a private citizen or as a manager leading a group, I always treat people with respect , even if I believe they are idiots - Tony Abbott excepted , of course !

Gregg says:

11:14am | 27/08/11

@Mahhrat,
” How is it that you do 4 years of Uni to be an IT officer, yet you can become a manager with a couple of 3-day workshops? “
Some people do study for longer in management areas and then that may not even make them such a good manager for management is also a lot about personal values, values learnt from life and experiences.

As for expertise, productivity and people, you could do far worse than study some Managerial Grid principles which is all a bit of Mumbo Jumbo on productivity Vs personal issues, and typically how a production manager might be pidgeonholed as a 9:1manager and a human resources manager a 1:9 person if you consider a 9X9 matrix with productivity and humanesss as the axes with 9:9 supposedly being perfection.

We do not so much have a knowledge gap but a belief that if you dive in you’ll either sink or swim for just as some managers may be recruited/selected, the recipients need also to have the belief in what they can do and that may be a false belief if they do not know or understand what their management should be all about.

Utopia Boy says:

08:10pm | 27/08/11

Aiden,
RUBBISH!
Leaders are molded by other good leaders. Any good leader will have a leader in their past whom they try to emulate. Charisma should never be confused with good leadership. Those with charismatic personalities will generally attract those they feel are their intellectual inferiors as followers.
Leaders will, by skill, perseverance, example and hard work, gain the respect of those around him / her. This ability has to be taught, because most of us have an in built mechanism we use to attract people. This mechanism can be different for different people, but when you can learn to use different methods to motivate different personalities / skill sets to achieve a common goal, you have become a leader. It’s the difference between a popularity contest and an ability to create cohesion within an ever changing group dynamic.
Management in a good organisation relies on robust systems and procedures. Good systems and procedures mean a system or procedure could be run by a monkey, using the “if this, do that” course of actions. Think problem solving your internet connection with a call centre.

Managers fail due to poor systems and control measures. Leaders fail because they cannot / fail to motivate people.

james hunter says:

10:38am | 26/08/11

Seems like BHP has hit a Home Run ?

papachango says:

03:48pm | 26/08/11

The way to deal with micro managers is beat them at their own game. cc them on every single email you send, no matter how insignificant, and load them up with reports/memos/contracts.invoices or whatever to check. Leave them 20 voicemails a day about trivial stuff like what colour the report folder should be.

Either they’ll get sick of being loaded up with work and emails and back off, or your work won’t get done because its always with them to check, and if they ask you, you just nonchalantly reply ‘It’s in your in tray waiting for you to check, Boss’.

Of course you could have one of those psycho bosses who does 18 hour days checking up on everything and following you up constantly, but then you really don’t want to work there…

acotrel says:

05:57am | 27/08/11

The BHP super profit is very good news, especially considering the economic circumstances in which it was achieved.  If there is anyone who should be thanked it is Paul Keating and John Hewson for the way they introduced the free market into Australia with strong checks and balances. Pity about our manufacturing industry though ?

marley says:

03:08pm | 26/08/11

The word “gotten” is perfectly acceptable in American and Canadian English, and its usage in fact predates “got”  by quite a few centuries.  Or, have you “forgotten” your history of the language?

gra gra says:

12:58am | 27/08/11

You complain about “gotten”, which is a pure English word, although not much used, and then you introduce “tha”? What a silly little boy/girl you are.

acotrel says:

06:01am | 27/08/11

@Marley There is no such thing as ‘American and Canadian English’ ! What you are referring to is simply a corruption of a very expressive language, which often detracts from its value.

marley says:

07:59am | 27/08/11

@acotrel - if you care to check, you will find that there are dictionaries of American and of Canadian English which, surprise surprise, are not identical to the Oxford English.  Anyone with any knowledge of the history of English will tell you that the American and English versions began to diverge after the American Revolution, but that at least some of the American usages are older than their current English equivalents.  The use of “gotten” is an example:  it was in common use in English five or six centuries ago - the Americans kept it, the English abandoned it.  So tell me, which is the “corruption?”

marley says:

04:04pm | 27/08/11

Until you yourself get promoted into the PP zone