Abstract
In difficult times, people need leadership as well as management. This is true in the NHS today, and in the foreseeable future. It is true, too, in many other organizations in Britain and elsewhere. Yet ‘leadership’ is a word that many in the NHS are still chary of using. Even ‘management’ may still be viewed with scepticism and the traditional term, ‘administration’ used instead, especially by doctors referring to non-medical managers. Each word has a different, though often ambiguous, meaning and each is necessary in the NHS today. Before we can focus on leadership, we must first understand how these terms differ.
‘There is a difference between leadership and management. Leadership is of the spirit, compounded of personality and vision; its practice is an art. Management is of the mind, a matter of accurate calculation…its practice is a science. Managers are necessary; leaders are essential.’
(Field Marshall Lord Slim, when Governor-General of Australia)1
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Notes and references
Quoted by John Van Maurik, Discovering the Leader in You ( London: McGraw-Hill, 1994) p. 6.
Rosemary Stewart, The Reality of Management 2nd edn (London: Heinemann and Pan, 1985), and The Reality of Organizations 3rd edn (Macmillan, 1993).
Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus Leaders: Five Strategies for Taking Charge (New York: Harper & Row, 1985) pp. 89–90.
Gareth Morgan Riding the Waves of Change: Developing Managerial Competencies for a Turbulent World (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1988).
Warren Bennis The Unconscious Conspiracy: Why Leaders Can’t Lead (New York: AMACON, 1976) p. 15.
Douglas McGregor, The Human Side of Enterprise (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1960) p. 48. McGregor distinguished between Theory X, which he called the traditional view of motivation that people disliked work and therefore had to be coerced and controlled, and Theory Y, which was that people will work willingly, in the right conditions.
J. de Kervasdoue, J. R. Kimberley and V. G. Rodwin, The End of an Illusion: The Future of Health Policy in Western Industrialized Nations ( Berkeley: University of California, 1984).
Tom Peters Thriving on Chaos: Handbook for a Management Revolution, (London: Macmillan, 1987) p. 416.
John Harvey-Jones, Making it Happen: Reflections on Leadership ( London: Collins, 1988) pp. 112–13.
J. R. Meindl, S. B. Ehrlich and J.M. Dukerich, ‘The Romance of Leadership’ Administrative Science Quarterly (March 1985) pp. 78–102.
Tom Peters and Nancy Austin A Passion for Excellence: The Leadership Difference (London: Collins, 1985).
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© 1996 Rosemary Stewart
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Stewart, R. (1996). Leadership. In: Leading in the NHS. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24309-9_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24309-9_1
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