Leadership and Management Concepts

Flashcards covering key concepts related to leadership, management, control systems, data management, and security.

Leaders vs. Managers

Leaders focus on doing the right things (vision, long-term, change), while managers focus on doing things right (execution, short-term, stability).

Formal Leadership

Influence that comes from a position or title.

Informal Leadership

Influence that comes from being respected, liked, or skilled.

Trait Theory

The idea that effective leaders have stable personal characteristics that predict leadership emergence and effectiveness.

Consideration (Ohio State)

People-oriented leadership focused on trust, respect, and well-being.

Initiating Structure (Ohio State)

Task-oriented leadership focused on roles, expectations, and getting work done.

Initiation (Sub-dimension)

Generating ideas and pushing for change.

Organization (Sub-dimension)

Structuring tasks and clarifying roles.

Production (Sub-dimension)

Setting goals and coordinating work.

Blake & Mouton Leadership Grid

A model that maps leadership style based on concern for people and concern for production.

1,1 (Impoverished)

Low concern for both people and production.

1,9 (Country Club)

High concern for people, low for production.

9,1 (Authority-Compliance)

High concern for production, low for people.

5,5 (Middle-of-the-Road)

Balanced but not optimal on both.

9,9 (Team Management)

High concern for both people and production.

Normative Decision-Making Theory

A model that says the best decision style depends on the situation.

Autocratic Decision

Leader makes the decision alone.

Consultative Decision

Leader gathers input but makes the final decision.

Facilitative Decision

Leader helps the group reach consensus.

Delegative Decision

Team makes the decision.

Leader-Member Exchange (LMX)

A theory focusing on the relationship quality between leader and each follower.

High-LMX (In-Group)

High trust, more responsibility, better performance and satisfaction.

Low-LMX (Out-Group)

Low trust, routine tasks, lower engagement.

Transactional Leadership

Leadership based on exchanges between leader and follower.

Contingent Reward

Rewards given for meeting goals.

Active Management-by-Exception

Monitoring and fixing problems before they grow.

Passive Management-by-Exception

Only reacting after problems happen.

Laissez-Faire Leadership

Avoiding responsibility (least effective).

Transformational Leadership

Inspiring followers to go beyond self-interest for the organization.

Intellectual Stimulation

Encouraging creativity and new ideas.

Individualized Consideration

Supporting each person’s needs.

Inspirational Motivation

Creating a strong, meaningful vision.

Idealized Influence (Charisma)

Leading by example and building trust.

Pseudo-Transformational Leadership

Leaders who appear inspirational but are actually self-serving and unethical.

Control

The process of setting standards, measuring performance, and correcting deviations.

Cybernetic Control Process

A six-step feedback loop used to manage performance.

Feedforward Control

Prevents problems before they happen (proactive).

Concurrent Control

Fixes problems in real time as they happen.

Feedback Control

Fixes problems after they happen.

Control Loss

When performance does not meet standards.

Regulation Costs

Costs of implementing control systems.

Cybernetic Feasibility

Whether a system can realistically be monitored and controlled.

Bureaucratic Control

Uses rules, policies, and hierarchy.

Objective Control

Uses measurable performance (behavior or output).

Normative Control

Uses culture and shared values.

Concertive Control

Peer pressure and team norms control behavior.

Self-Control

Individuals regulate their own behavior.

Customer Defection Monitoring

Tracking and preventing customers from leaving.

Data

Raw facts with no context.

Information

Processed data that is useful for decision-making.

Moore’s Law

Computing power doubles every two years while cost decreases.

First-Mover Advantage

Advantage gained by being first to use new technology.

Sustained Competitive Advantage (IT)

IT creates long-term advantage if it is valuable, rare, and hard to copy.

Useful Information Characteristics

Characteristics include accurate, complete, relevant, and timely.

Acquisition Cost

Cost to collect data.

Processing Cost

Cost to turn data into useful information.

Storage Cost

Cost to save information.

Retrieval Cost

Cost to access stored data.

Communication Cost

Cost to share information.

Data Silos

When data is isolated in separate systems, increasing processing difficulty.

Barcodes

Speed up checkout and reduce errors.

QR Codes

Store more data and can be scanned digitally.

RFID Tags

Use radio waves, no line-of-sight needed.

Sensors

Detect and send real-time data.

OCR (Optical Character Recognition)

Converts printed text into digital text.

Robotic Data Automation

Software bots that extract and process data automatically.

Data Mining

Finding patterns in large datasets.

Data Warehouse

Central storage of cleaned data.

Supervised Data Mining

User looks for specific patterns.

Unsupervised Data Mining

System finds patterns on its own.

Association Patterns

Items that occur together.

Sequence Patterns

Items that occur in order.

Predictive Patterns

Patterns that predict outcomes.

Data Clusters

Groups of related data points.

Denial-of-Service Attack

Overloads systems to shut them down.

Malware/Virus

Harmful software.

Phishing

Fake messages to steal information.

Ransomware

Locks data until payment is made.

Social Engineering

Manipulating people to gain access.

Authentication

Verifying identity.

Authorization

Granting access.

Two-Factor Authentication

Two forms of verification.

Passkeys

Secure login using device-based keys (phishing-resistant).

Firewall

Filters network traffic.

Encryption

Protects data by encoding it.

VPN

Secure internet connection.

SSL

Secure website connection (https).

Executive Information System (EIS)

High-level dashboards for overall performance.

Decision Support System (DSS)

Helps with specific decisions using data.

Intranet

Internal company network.

Extranet

Limited external access to internal systems.

EDI (Electronic Data Interchange)

Standardized data exchange between companies.

Web Services

Flexible system-to-system communication without standard format.

Expert System

Uses if-then rules to mimic expert decisions.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Machines that can learn, think, and adapt.

Prompt Engineering

Crafting inputs to get better AI outputs.

RLHF

Training AI using human feedback.

AI Agents

AI tools that can perform tasks automatically.