Peace Being The Soft Manager example essay topic

This article was in the Harvard Business Review December of 2001. Is "hard" management the way to go or is the other way around is "soft" management the best way to manage? In the article Peace is arguing that soft managers are better managers than hard managers. Peace describes a hard manager as a person who is self-confident, arrogant, and thick skinned. While he describes a soft manager one that listens to criticism and takes time to notice employees opinions. If one has ever worked they have probably experienced hard and soft managers.

In the article Peace describes two stories that illustrates the positive aspects to soft management. In the first story he tells of when he was a manager at Synthetic Fuels Division of Westinghouse. The company was going down and running out of funds to support itself, and the company was looking to sell itself due to financial difficulties. They had already laid off over 100 employees to try and conserve the company long enough for sale. It was coming close to time to lay more people off in an attempt to show that the company would do anything to save itself.

Peace and the other mangers came up with a list of 15 people that they were going to lay off, but Peace told the other managers that he would like to break the news to these 15 instead of them doing so. Peace did not have to do this himself, but he chose to do it to show these employees that it was at much dismay that they had to layoff these 15 employees. In doing so Peace not only showed the interested buyers that the company was willing to sacrifice to save the company, but he also showed his employees that their roles in the company were much appreciated. This was a very brave act that Pearce had done. Most hard managers would not have taken the time to let the employees know that they are respected. Most hard managers would have had their "puppets" break the bad news to the unlucky 15.

Peace being the soft manager that he is showed compassion towards them, which also showed the remaining employees his compassion towards them. In the second story Peace was working as the vice president of Westinghouse Steam Turbine Division. In this story the focus is on Peace's boss the president of the company, Gene. When Gene became the president of the company it was under a depression state in that it wasn't making much of a profit at all.

The workers were in a very brutal union that threatened those who even dared to cross picket lines. Gene understood the kind of people that he would be dealing with in trying to communicate the goals of the company to the entire work force. Instead of having the president of the union tell the work force about the companies goals, Gene decided he would do it a division at a time himself. When he done so he received much criticism while giving these presentations. Peace did not understand why Gene would do this to himself, but after a few weeks as Gene walked about the floor he received nods of gratitude. Gene had made a gesture of friendship to the workforce by doing it himself.

This is another form of soft management and how it can be a successful way of managing. Pearce concludes his article in saying that soft management is not the best way to manage and neither is hard management. He says, "proponents of all management styles will probably agree that to manage other people effectively, a person needs a battery of qualities that are not easily acquired". Among the qualities that Pearce is talking about are intelligence, energy, confidence, and responsibility. Although this doesn't encompass all the qualities need to be the "best" manager possible. After reading the article one can conclude that soft management is something that should be considered by every manager.

Most managers don't take the time to recognize all their employees, which can be very profitable to them. While also reading the article one can conclude that hard management can be very effective in the work force as well. One can only hope that their manager can use both methods. Is one method of managing better than the other? The answer is no, one method is no more important than the other in effective managing.