Future of Management Trends/Concepts In today's highly competitive business world, it is important to keep pace with the changes in management trends and practices in order to stay ahead of one's competitors. When every major firm in an industry is just as important and influential as its closest rival, then the winner is not determined by the amount of capital invested or technologies implemented, rather it is the management practices that determine the future of a firm. The better and more flexible one firm's management practices are, the better are its chances of beating competition and emerging a winner.

However a set of good management practices is not enough. To compete successfully, management practices must be flexible and sensitive to new trends and concepts. As trends change and new concepts emerge, management practices must be flexible enough to keep pace with them and management should quickly adopt new trends without any significant friction or hiccups. Managers play an important role in this connection. They are the ones who sense changes in management concepts and implement them in the manner that best serve the objectives of the firm. In today's world, a manager is often seen as the leader and boundaries of their roles have blurred somewhat.

However Management and leadership are two different concepts with distinct features and qualities. It is important to...

Managers may possess leadership qualities but this should be treated more as an asset than a pre-requisite. Management is responsible for performing the four important functions of Planning, Organizing, Leading, and controlling while the leader has no such specific job. He is required to bring fresh perspective and vision to the organization and his experience is not as important as his ability to detect change and stay one step ahead of it. "Managers do things right, while leaders do the right thing."(Pascale, 1990)
Managers must possess a great deal of experience because their job description requires application of factual knowledge to their work instead of intuition or vision. If they choose to lead the organization, it should be through knowledge alone and not a charismatic personality or bold ideas. "Leaders stand out by being different. They question assumption and are suspicious of tradition. They seek out the truth and make decisions based on fact, not prejudice. They have a preference for innovation."(Fenton, 1990) Managers on the other hand choose to stay with the facts and previous experience when making decisions.

However in today's highly demanding corporate world, managers must possess leadership qualities or else others may find it difficult to…