1. Initial background research

Use Wikipedia(http://en.wikipedia.org) to find the entry for 'leadership'. Either search under this term, or go directly to the Leadership page(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leadership). Scroll down to 'Leadership's relation with management' and make notes on the following:

• The essential qualities of a leader
• The differences between leaders and managers
• Pitcher's three types of leader

2. Further leadership styles work

Now find out more about leadership styles from these Biz/ed pages:

• Firstly, go to our 'In the News' archive(http://www.bized.co.uk/dataserv/chron/index.htm). Enter 'Clough' into the 'In the News' search box and make notes on this football manager's style of management.
• Next, go to the Virtual Factory(http://www.bized.co.uk/virtual/cb/welcome.htm). Navigate to the 'Day in the Life' feature, which is available from the home page of the Factory. Go to the outline of the Production Manager's job and try to answer question 1. You can find the questions from the 'Day in the Life' page.

Image: Nottingham Forest celebrate winning the European Cup in 1980. Under Brian Clough's management, the club won two European Cups and the Football League championship.
Title: Forest's Cup. Copyright: Getty Images, available from Education Image Gallery

3. Case studies of business leaders

Comparing the styles of successful business leaders can be a useful way to see theory put into practice. Go to the Harvard Business School's (HBS) 'Working Knowledge' Web section on leadership(http://hbsworkingknowledge.hbs.edu/topic.jhtml?t=leadership).

Go to the feature on the HBS Awards for Alumni Achievement 2004(http://hbsworkingknowledge.hbs.edu/item.jhtml?id=4468&t=leadership). Research into the performance and style of the following two business leaders:

• Minoru Makihara - CEO and president of Mitsubishi 1992-98
• A.G. Laffley - CEO of Proctor and Gamble 2000 - current

For each of these two business leaders, find out:

• Problems facing their organisation before they took leadership
• Solutions put in place by the leader
• The style of leadership used

4. Leadership through cartoons

One of the features of management and leadership education is the use of cartoons and children's characters to throw light on the subjects. Browse through Amazon listings of books on these subjects. See the following:

• Dilbert: Don't Step in the Leadership(http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0752223895/qid=1101999794/sr=1-76/ref=sr_1_2_76/202-1971200-3716636)
• The Tao of Pooh(http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1405204265/qid=1101999929/sr=1-15/ref=sr_1_2_15/202-1971200-3716636)

Here's a typical example, where key aspects of leadership are illustrated through the medium of SpongeBob SquarePants.(http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/86/5things.html)

Image: What can SpongeBob tell us about leadership? Copyright: Renato Carvalho

5. Management gurus

One final thought and task - books and articles on management and leadership tend to use a lot of lists. In fact, I'm using a list right now, although it's only got five items at the moment. One of the most famous contemporary management gurus is Tom Peters. In an article he wrote in 2001 for Fast Company magazine(http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/44/rules.html), he anticipated some of the key features of leadership in the 21st Century. His list of ideas comes to a total of fifty!

Of course, everything becomes clearer with hindsight, but Peters should have tempered his enthusiasm for the work of Kenneth Lay of Enron (see point 18), although he does say that Lay, who apparently is known to George W. Bush as 'Kenny-boy', and his managers 'have figured out how to operate like a band of pirates'.

Read through as many of these list items as you can and, from this list and the one in the previous task, make your own top ten ideas for effective leadership.

Summary

A study of management and leadership could take up an entire course of study, or in the case of some of the management gurus, an entire career. You are not expected to do this, though. What you do need is summarised below:

• Understand some of the theory underpinning the subject
• Be able to describe the differences between being a manager and leader
• Have some examples, drawn from the real world, of successful business leaders and managers and their styles

This resource did not set out to cover the theme comprehensively, but it should equip you with the tools to find and show evidence of appropriate skills in this area.