Modern Management And Leadership

Jon Bright

Description

From building a team to managing for the long-term, those that are successful in organisations will have one thing in common, the ability to lead and manage.

With the advance of technology and new developments in working practices, much has changed in business over recent years, but one essential truth remains – the importance of leadership and management. Drawing on evidence and experience, Jon Bright brings together helpful and practical suggestions to improve how we lead and manage people, organisations and places.

Whether beginning the long slog up the corporate ladder in local government, the civil service or the not-for-profit sector – or trying to navigate your way in smaller, more fluid and agile organisations, the book covers most aspects of leadership and management. It is for those managing people for the first time and old hands who have got a bit lost. It’s also for people who find themselves in senior leadership roles but have the insight to know they need to further develop their confidence, insights and skills.

Sujets

• Management
• Leadership
• Business
• Economics
• Gestion et management

Informations

• Publié par: Legend Press
• Date de parution: 01 février 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781915643940
• Langue: English

Extrait

Published by University of Buckingham Press,
an imprint of Legend Times Group
51 Gower Street
London WC1E 6HJ
[e-mail]
www.unibuckinghampress.com
Contents Jon Bright 2023
The right of the above author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data available.
Print ISBN 9781915643933
Ebook ISBN 9781915643940
Set in Times.
All characters, other than those clearly in the public domain, and place names, other than those well-established such as towns and cities, are fictitious and any resemblance is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
Until 2014, Jon Bright was a senior civil servant in the UK Government. Posts included Director of Homelessness and Housing Support, Regional Director of the Government Office for the South West, and senior positions in the Government s Neighbourhood Renewal and Social Exclusion Units. He was also seconded to Birmingham City Council as Director of Policy. Before joining the Civil Service, he led two national organisations focused on crime reduction and urban safety. Since leaving the Civil Service, he has been CEO of two charities in Oxfordshire, Community First and Citizens Advice. Earlier in his career, he was awarded a Harkness Fellowship to study in the USA and is the author of two other books. He now contributes to training programmes for overseas civil servants and undertakes occasional consultancy and writing projects.
Acknowledgements
I m very grateful to the following who have commented on the text of this book or contributed ideas to it: Colin Byrne, Carrie Barry, Ian Barry, Sue Corrigan, Dr. Philip Davies, Professor Simon Harding, Dr. Nick Hicks, Dr. Peter Homel, Suzanne Lingard, Laurence Lingard Bright, Tom McCulloch, Dr. Jenny Owen, Steve Stride and Major Emma Thomas. They have corrected mistakes, brought a wider perspective to the book and improved it as a result. As always, they bear no responsibility for any shortcomings. I am also very grateful to my editor, Jonathan Reuvid, who encouraged me to write the book and provided sound advice throughout.
To Sue, Laurence, Harry and Anna
INTRODUCTION
This book is about the essential lessons of leadership and management, why they are important and probably always will be. They are the fundamentals. The point of the book is to bring them together in one place. It is for anyone involved in leading and managing people, organisations, or places.
A statement of the obvious - this is an important topic.
Good leadership and management are essential for organisations : their success, impact, reputation and profitability.
Good leadership and management directly affect employees experience of work: their job satisfaction, their well-being and sometimes their mental health.
And the quality of leadership and management in the public realm directly affects the places we all live and work in.
As well as being important, it s also a very broad topic. In the interest of length and readability, the book does not try to cover everything. It s not primarily about management systems or organisational development; nor is it only about top management. It doesn t include detailed discussions on topics such as industrial relations, or crisis management where rapid, decisive leadership is needed. Nor does it cover governance or managing volunteers in any detail. It will say something about most of these issues but there are many helpful books that deal with them already.
It draws on the work of a small number of experts and organisations, selected because they offer practical recommendations based on evidence. Part of the reason for writing this book is because lessons from the past are frequently forgotten in the drive for innovation, and we are living in a time when there is little corporate memory.
But it s not just about what has gone before. The book includes new insights from recent developments in technology and ways of working that have only emerged in the past few years. These include remote, hybrid and home working and new perspectives on performance management.
The book will be useful to those beginning the long slog up the corporate ladder in local government or the civil service, in commercial organisations and in the not-for-profit sector. Or for those trying to navigate their way in newer, smaller, more fluid and agile businesses and not-for-profits. Or for those in mid-career who have grown a bit stale through lack of variation in their work or progression in their career and need a bit of a refresher.
It is for those managing people for the first time and old hands who have got a bit lost. It s also for people who find themselves in senior leadership roles but have the insight to know they do not have the necessary confidence, insights, and skills. This may be because training courses have been cut or were not particularly good.
And it is for those studying leadership and management in universities and business schools. It will also be of interest to public policy specialists.
Much of the book will be of interest to leaders and managers in all sectors. But not all of it will necessarily be of interest to everyone.
Chapters 1-7 cover topics that every manager needs to wrestle with: recruiting good staff, engaging them, building teams, promoting diversity, developing a leadership style, getting the management basics right, managing performance and managing upwards, sideways and outwards.
In the final chapters, I change gear a little. Chapters 8-10 are more focused on the public sector and will be relevant to anyone concerned about public strategy, including business leaders. These chapters deal with how we manage places, how we use evidence of what works , and how we tackle problems that aren t the responsibility of any one organisation such as crime, town centre or neighbourhood decline, anti-social behaviour and homelessness.
Chapter 11 asks how government might do more to avoid short termism and adopt policies that continue over the longer term so they have more impact. It is mainly for those working in central and local government, politicians, those active in social policy networks and think tanks and university researchers, as well as people in management roles. It s for anyone really who is concerned about UK governance.
These final chapters address a central issue for public sector managers: how to develop new models of service delivery and tackle public policy challenges in a difficult financial climate. In these circumstances, options are constrained by squeezed budgets, rising demand, media scrutiny, changing public expectations and political pressures.
It is a difficult time to be a manager. Remote and hybrid working are now common in most sectors but bring with them implications for management that we do not yet fully understand. Technology is increasingly used to replace some tasks and enable generalist managers to take on others for which they previously received specialist support. Employee expectations of work are changing. And pressures on leaders and managers to improve performance can often seem relentless.
Managers today, therefore, need to be visible, empathetic, performance-focused and able to support their staff in organisations that are often under stress. Accordingly, all the chapters in the book include practical ideas that can be taken forward by busy people.
I have worked in the civil service, local government and in the not-for-profit, charitable sector. I have also worked closely with business. I m lucky to have worked with and for some very capable leaders from whom I ve learnt a great deal.
I ve always combined an interest in public policy with an interest in how to lead and manage. Policy specialists sometimes forget that policies have little chance of success unless three conditions are present: realistic strategies to deliver them; delivery organisations that are well led and managed; and longer-term planning, so policies take root and thrive.
I emphatically do not make any claim to be a management expert or even particularly proficient. In a sense, I m an everyman(ager) , trying to make the best of whatever situation I find myself in, as most of us do. I ve held leadership and management roles in many different organisational settings and wish I had known more about some of the lessons in this book when I started out.
And to make it easier to read, my editor and I have tried to strip out most of the management jargon. Although we can t be sure we ve been entirely successful
Jon Bright
CONTENTS
Chapter 1: Build a Great Team
Chapter 2: Recruit a Diverse Workforce
Chapter 3: Develop Your Leadership Style(s)
Chapter 4: Get the Management Basics Right
Chapter 5: Engage Your Staff - Regularly
Chapter 6: Manage Sideways, Upwards, and Outwards
Chapter 7: Manage Performance but Don t Drown People in Process
Chapter 8: Understand Strategy
Chapter 9: Manage Places Well
Chapter 10: Do What Works
Chapter 11: Manage for the Long Term
Conclusion
Chapter 1
Build a Great Team
Get the right people on the bus, the wrong people off it and the right people in the right seats advises Jim Collins in his 2001 book Good to Great ( 1 ).
The first chapter is about building high-performing teams. * Building or refreshing a team is the first job many leaders coming into a new role will undertake. Their success will depend on how well they do it.
Although Jim Collins s quote has an attractive simplicity, getting the right pe