Green-, Yellow- and Red-Light Leadership

Research Paper (undergraduate) from the year 2010 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 1,0, Munich University of Applied Sciences (Fakultaet fur Wirtschaftsingenieurwesen), course: Master of Business Administration & Engineering, language: English, abstract: For several decades now, we have experienced an unavoidable and strongly growing market globalization. We have also been able to experience some very remarkable changes in the globe's market scenarios: good economic times for some companies on the globe, uncertain, fluctuating or changing economic times for some other companies on the globe. Some companies doing well, while others having to struggle for survival. Why these differences in companies' economic success, when the conditions seem to be the same for everyone participating in the game of corporate business? The answer is, that some companies' leaders recognize where their weaknesses and strengths lay inside the company and where theiropportunities and threats lay in the surrounding market theater, while some leaders do not. A primordial and successfully performed SWOT analysis gives clues as to what a company s leaders and managers have to do for best achievement of the intended business goals. At this early point it is absolutely necessary to distinguish between the company s inner environment and its surrounding market environment. At this point it is also necessary to be aware of the fact, that management and leadership are two related but different disciplines for operating the company. Management means working by the system and doing things right. Leadership means working on the system and doing the right things. In this term paper on green light, yellow light and red light management and leadership, I will try to explain what color of light correlates with which discipline and with which type of causal market situation.