The future is approaching fast and tomorrow's organizations are being built today. Existing standards will no longer be effective or will be modified to meet tomorrow's trends. Management and leadership will change to meet the demands of future employees. I will differentiate between management and leadership in the following paragraphs. I will also describe emerging trends and will indicate how the future will affect the four functions of management.



Understanding the roles of leaders and management is very important. A leader provides a vision and motivates the employee to pursue that vision. We can define leadership as ?influencing others to work willingly toward achieving objectives?. Managing involves planning, organizing, leadings and controlling people or groups of people to achieve the company's objectives.

Leaders fill many roles. They interact with and motivate employees, they manage groups and teams, they also manage organization and cultural change. When conflicts arise within a group, the leader must analyze the situation and resolve the issue without disrupting the day-to-day business operations.

The ?command and control? approach appears to be ineffective and outdated. This style of leadership appears to be ineffective in motivating today's employees. Today's employees wish to be treated as equals and desire a relationship with their leaders that is ?indicative of mutual trust, friendship, support, respect and warmth?.

Exerting leadership ?means championing a new idea and having the vision and the drive and courage, conviction and self confidence to convince others to work with you to implement that vision?.

The responsibility of management is to plan, organize, lead and control people or group of people within an organization so that the organization achieves its goals. Managers implement a plan of action and then they make a decision how they are going the achieve the desired results. Managers then begin organizing by deciding what functions need to be performed and who will have the responsibility to complete these tasks. Management will use controls to determine whether or not their plan was successful.

In this rapidly changing economy where employees are expected to possess higher level of skills, I believe managers will be eliminated and there will be a greater demand for leaders. Change is inevitable in organizations, managing this change is essential. Transformational leadership is the most effective style to lead change. Transformational leaders focus on a vision and they encourage employees to develop problem solving techniques and resolve issues independently. With a transformational leader and highly skilled employees, management can be eliminated with greater emphasis being placed on the leader and the employees to make decisions on their own.

Linking the present and future together in our minds and actions will be essential to planning for the future. Too many business stumble as they seem to neglect future demands. In planning for the future, foresight will be required to determine trends and changing technology. Competition will force businesses to downsize and to partner with other businesses of similar interests or markets. Planning for the future will be more challenging as businesses strive to stay ahead of technology and as they chase market trends.

Organizing in the future will change to compliment the dexterity of the workforce. Organization without boundaries will be the standard set in the company. Departments will be interrelated with all employees working to reach the same goal Employees will be customer-driven and not management-driven.

Future leading will follow the transformational style of leadership. The transformational leader will stimulate the employees and encourage them to ?approach old and familiar problems in new ways?. This will ?enable employees to question their own beliefs and use creative ways to solve problems by themselves?. Transformational leadership will encourage brainstorming on the part of employees. With a transformational leadership and the assistance of employees, the transformational leader will be innovative and initiate change by leading changes in mission, and structure.

Future controls will follow the traditional controls of business with emphasis being placed on diagnostic control systems. Due to competition and changing markets, companies will have to run efficiently and lean. They will have to establish sales budgets, operating budgets, and production and materials budgets to determine whether or not they are running efficiently. It is in the controls that the business can determine whether or not they have been successful in achieving their goals.