By Akpeli Othuke Andrew.
Peter F. Drucker in a bit to differentiate Management and Leadership said, ‘Management is doing things right; While leadership is doing the right things.’ Many professionals has pondered about this statement in determining the best process in carrying out corporate governance in an establishment.
According to Thomas Hobbes, ‘Man when left in its natural state will exist in a state of anarchy in which everyone would do whatever he wanted, even when it is detrimental to his neighbour.’ The reason being that man cannot be trusted to do the right thing. He therefore postulates that to escape from a state of chaos and war, man willingly or unwillingly gives up some natural rights to a central authority (government) by way of a social contract -which in turn assures the citizenry of protection- in addition to other benefits. Due to this declaration, it is eminent to set out rules to achieve the set goals in any corporate establishment.
This is exactly what corporate governance wishes to achieve in setting laws, ethics and practices. But to what extent do this rules or norms was supposed to be pursued, becomes a question which a good leadership structure is important to be fully addressed. In most cases, the best management structures with bad leadership structures had woefully failed to address.
Employees being human will tend to reacted to actions taking by an organization either by saying it or delivering half measures to the organization in order to stay in the ambience of the set rules. Which is obviously not what the organization wishes to achieve even when it seems to meet up what management requires. An organization will be grateful to employees who can boost the achievement of a better and a more successful result even when they are a little at par with the set down procedures.
Studies had shown that even the best thought-of rules and norms, or the so called ‘Generally Accepted Principles’ set out to control organizations are not to be pushed to all the limits. That is why a good leadership structure is more important that a the best tailored-out management principles.
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