Twice a year for the past 21 years, Victor H. Vroom of the School of Management SOM has led a workshop designed to help managers become more effective leaders. This year, he'll again be leading that workshop, titled "Leadership and Team Effectiveness," May 12-16.
"Managers seldom live in a static world," says Mr. Vroom, who holds the John G. Searle Professorship in Management at SOM. "They change jobs, change organizations, move from one country to another, from sector to sector." Such changes, he notes, "spur new challenges, new opportunities, and place new situational demands on leadership."
While mobility requires change, "it is by no means its only cause," notes Professor Vroom, an international authority on the psychological analysis of behavior in organizations. "Deregulation, foreign competition and new tax laws have brought with them massive changes in the way in which corporations have to be structured and managed. Managerial leadership is no longer maintaining the status quo. Old habits must be discarded if one is to respond to today's challenges and opportunities."
Managers must be both participative and autocractic and know when to employ each management style, contends Professor Vroom. "Let's face it, a poor decision could cost a company millions."
Professor Vroom's workshop is based on his book "The New Leadership: Managing Participation in Organizations." For registration information, contact Dianne Gamache, executive program coordinator, at 432-6038.