Psychology of management

parties which in their character approach formal organizations. 
In any collective there is the so-called “prestige scale” where employees take their 
position in accordance with their colleagues’ recognition. This position is far from always being 
the same as that in the formal list of ranks. It often happens that the highest authority in a 
collective has a person who formally doesn’t hold any positions of responsibility. Such a person 
becomes informal leader of the collective.
A leader and an executive
is not the same thing. The difference here is the same as that 
between a formal and an informal group. A 
leader
is a person who in relation to the group can 
be viewed as its mirror. Only 
the person who has the traits which are welcomed and 
approved in exactly a given, specific group can be its leader.
That is why planting a leader 
into another group or appointing him/her from atop as an executive is unproductive. 
There are distinguished: 
1. 
Leader-organizer
. His/her main difference is that (s)he perceives the collective’s 
needs as his/her own and acts accordingly. This leader is optimistic and is sure that most of the 
problems are quite possible to solve. (S)he is followed in the knowledge that (s)he will not offer 
castles in the air. (S)he can persuade, is disposed to giving incentives, and if having to reproach 
(s)he does it without hurting other people’s dignity, and as a result, people try to work better. It is 
such people who try to be in the forefront in any informal collective. 
2. 
Leader-creator
. (S)he attracts first of all by the ability of seeing the new, of taking up 
problems which may seem insolvable or even dangerous to others. (S)he doesn’t order, but only 
invites to discussion, may pose a task in such a way that it will interest and attract people. 
3. 
Leader-fighter
. (S)he is strong-willed, sure of his/her strengths person. (S)he is the 
first to meet danger or uncertainty. (S)he is ready to defend what (s)he believes in and is not 
disposed to compromise. But such leader sometimes has not enough time to think all his actions 
over and to foresee everything. “Recklessness of the barave”, to cite M.Gorky, 
—
this is his 
style. 
4.