In facing the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) and the upcoming APEC 2020, management process, the activity to conquer time and space using the optimum level of resources, becomes more and more crucial. And when talking about human resources, leadership takes one of the top priorities.

Andrew Tani, an author and management consultant, said that a leader is someone who performs the task of uniting the members of an organization. “Without effective leadership, an organization cannot carry out its avowed purpose,” said Andrew Tani during the Book Review & Mini Workshop for his book,“GETTING REAL: How Manager-leaders Really Do It”, at BINUS JWC Campus, Jakarta.

The existence of a business implies that there is work to get done and people to do it. A clear indication of the work ahead is determined when the leader articulates long-term objectives and the conditions of the end-state, that the organization should strive to bring to fruition. This important description of the future state that the organization seeks to make happen is called the leader’s vision.

Clarity of destination helps the leader to decide the right way to deploy resources, to act and react to exploit opportunities, and to overcome obstacles to successfully carrying out the organization’s purpose. The pattern of actions taken and planned is called the leader’s strategy.

Organizing follows with decisions concerning who does the part of the work. With whom, with what tools and methods, with what quality and skills, using what materials, when, where, for how long, for how much, and so on. The outcome is the organizational infrastructure. It consists of operating goals, management processes, and structures and systems that facilitate the execution of the leader’s strategy.

Today’s business leaders must organize people and things in distinct ways because they do not have the same nature. In organizing a group of people, the thoughts that the leader has to contemplate and link together is social in nature. To articulate the purpose and guiding principles that unites the people, the leaders should instill business relevant values when they perform the assigned organizational role.

Leaders should prescribe, set an example, and encourage a preferred attitude, code of behavior, and work standards, or style for all members of the group. Wise leaders make sure that the demands of the strategies are addressed by work practices, management practices, and leadership practices that constitute their organizational styles. At the same time, they ensure that the values permeated by the structures, systems, processes, and skills that constitute organizational infrastructure.

To efficiently drive the technical side of the organization, a leaders needs to the science of management. And to effectively influence the social side, a leader needs to practice the art of leadership.

As organizations get larger, the level of complexity and stakes only get higher. And this is when organizations need manager-leaders, managers who have a thorough knowledge of their respective roles in the business and a deep understanding and influence over the people through whom they are assigned to carry out their assignments. “Manage by head, lead by heart. That’s what good manager-leaders do,” said Andrew Tani.

To prevail in the increasingly competitive world that we live in, the leader must establish and orchestrate a network of competent manager-leaders who applied scientific management and artful leadership to accomplish their assignments.

Andrew said that good manager-leaders are teachers that develop skills and character of the organization member. “Empathy and humility, those are what manager-leaders need to have,” he added.

Andrew Tani was the main speaker in the Book Review & Mini Workshop for “GETTING REAL: How Manager-leaders Really Do It”. The event itself was held on Thursday, September 29^th 2016, at BINUS JWC Campus, Senayan, Jakarta. (ERON)