Management is about putting into effective use all the available resources, from material to non-material; from tangible to intangible. Management is a skill learned and acquired. A closely related skill or characteristic is leadership, which in itself is both—sometimes bestowed by nature and, in many cases, acquired by individuals through experience and application. Management is also about the ability to listen with keen and rapt attention to dissenting or differing views.

Two similar organisations, having access to the same markets with almost identical profiles of finance and human resources, may produce different results. Why? What is that distinguishing or distinctive factor that differentiates performance? The simplest answer is ‘management coupled with leadership’. Leadership must essentially possess that trait or skill called ‘management’. Without this skill, there is no concept of leadership.

Finding Winter’s Magic in the Heart of AlUla

The world of business has moved on from the classical definition of management of the past, where the fundamental principle was ‘getting work done through people’, to ‘getting people done through work’. This is a paradigm shift of thought, where the emphasis and reliance is placed on the quality of human resources, which eventually either advances the organisation or jeopardises its current and future status.

In leading and managing institutions (read ‘country’, as an alternative too), the significant alteration in thought has to be the recognition that assembling the ‘right’ human resources quotient is critically important for progress, growth, and development. A stagnant human resource will invariably lead to the decay of the organisation.

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