The Essay Explores Leadership Vs. Management, Public Health Advocacy, Lobbying, And Evaluating Advocacy Strategies.

1. Explain the difference between leadership and management  
2. Explain why public health advocacy is important  
3. Explain the difference between lobbying and advocacy  
4. Explain three reasons why evaluation of an advocacy strategy is important 

When an individual portrays exceptional leadership qualities it does not necessarily ensure that the person will be a good manager as there exists certain differences between management and leadership. These differences are as follows:

• Leadership can be defined as the skill or an art whereby a leader engages in activities which help in inspiring the different members of the firm and helping them to achieve their innovation at large whereas a management is largely concerned with organizing. It is the duty of a leader in leadership to come up with new ideas and foster a sense of transition at the workplace (1). Their main objective is to make the organization better. However, management is simply concerned with ensuring that all the individuals are carrying out their duties and that there does not exist any chaos at the firm.
• Secondly, management is mostly done using the medium of control as a measure of evaluation whereas in leadership, the process is concerned with moving along the different employees and ensuring that people look up to them. A leader in leadership analyses the people and makes the best out of them such that they are successfully able to contribute for the welfare of the organization (2). Whereas, a manager in the management domain is just concerned with seeing to it that the job description is fulfilled and that the individuals achieve their organizational goals.
• Lastly, Leadership is proactive in nature where the work has to be done along with the employees and the leader takes an active role in every aspect of the firm. On the other hand, management is highly reactive in nature and the manager is just concerned with how the situation will be faced and what will be the time frame for it. Good leadership requires judgement and the ability to resolve any concerns which exist (3). On the other hand, management deals with just ensuring that their targets are successfully achieved.

Hence, it can be stated that the leadership is quite different from management. 

According to Rosen (2015), the public health advocacy can be described as those set of activities which assist in contributing towards a health promoting systematic change which influencing the manner in which the policy processes take place. The primary elements of public health advocacy are an emphasis to bring about a change, focusing on the laws and practices along with bringing about policy changes. The technique of public health advocacy is crucial as it engages in gaining political commitment for a program which is largely connected to a health strategy (4). Griffin and Thurber (2015) state that the main target audience for a public advocacy are the policy makers, decision makers, managers of various programs and those who have the capability to influence those who have the ability to alter the policies present (5). The primary importance of public health advocacy can be stated to be the fact that it is primarily concerned with acknowledging the public health, addresses social determinants of health as a key component and moreover, can be stated to be a crucial strategy to support the health of the people present in the environment. According to Rosen  (2015), as public health aims to reduce the burden of the individuals present in the society and devoid them of any related health problems, then public health advocacy plays the role of ensuring that the government has certain policies in favor of the public health. Moreover, as stated by the author the public advocacy has become very popular in the past and the awareness has increased by 30% of the last five years. 

According to Berry (2015), advocacy can be rightfully stated to be the act of presenting an argument in favor of some idea or a policy and raising one`s voice against it to ensure that their idea or policy is passed in favor of the general society. The advocacy acts has not particular limit to it.  On the other hand, lobbying can be defined as the act of an attempt to influence a particular legislation related to law. The method in which lobbying can be done can be divided into two parts (6). The first one is to contact or urge the public to make various policies contacts and support, propose or oppose a particular legislation. The second method is to advocate in order to adopt or reject a legislation. 

Importance of Public Health Advocacy

The advocacy strategies can be described as those strategies which an organization adopts in order to advocate against a policy or a particular move. The importance of monitoring and advocating the advocacy strategies cannot be undermined (7). The reason why monitoring and evaluating the advocacy strategy is crucial because it helps in the achievement of three objectives which are learning, accountability and performance management. These three aspects help in maintaining a sense of transparency and ensure that the organization is going on the right path. Advocacy not only helps to understand the maneuvers and factors which have to be considered with respect to change, but also helps to ensure that the practices are liable with both the internal as well as the external stakeholders which thereby assist in improving the advocacy skills in the future (8). The evaluation also helps to understand the complexity of the policies and the manner in which they are change along with the related outcomes.  Only when correctly evaluated, the outcomes can be achieved. 

The case study is bout advocating against an alcohol advertisement which is often shown in between sporting events on the television. Hence, for the purpose, a three member group has been formed in order to ensure long term success. 

As the objective which has been set for the particular project is to advocate for the removal of the alcohol advertisement is a difficult one and the fact that there will a diverse group working towards it makes it important to plan ahead. There will be various moves involved in lieu of ensuring that the team is able to achieve the goal. These moves will ensure writing a petition, appealing to the politician and lastly how a social media campaign shall be conducted. The steps which will be taken to embark on this project are as follows:

• Research into the legislatives related to the advertisement

As the advocacy which has to take place is considerably related to the advertisement which is shown in between the sports broadcasts related to alcohol, the first step to be adopted by the members is to research into advertisement laws and procedures before collecting any evidence (9). After the research into the laws have been done, then, evidence in the same regard has to be collected at large in order to promote further research and progress.

• Run a background check on your team

As the team is largely diverse in nature but is going to work for the organization as a whole, it becomes thereby important for each of the members to run a background check on the team which will assist in ensuring that the group norms and dynamics can be clearly estimated which shall then assist in ensuring that working with one another as a part of a team becomes considerably easier (11). This will ensure a greater chance of achieving group objectives.

• Dividing responsibilities

Lobbying vs Advocacy

The responsibility among the team members and their roles as well as responsibilities has to be clearly divided so that there is an avoidance of any confusion in this aspect and that the different members of the group can carry out their own roles which will ensure faster achievement of team goals (10).

• Engaging in letter writing, petition establishment and social media campaigning- This step will ensure that the appeal reaches out to the correct parties in form of petitions, letters as well as the different social media campaigns. 

As globalization has brought about a trend of a culturally diverse workforce, many critics have conducted studies which have led to the belief that the diversity has a strong impact on the performance of the team and that if any team is quite diverse in nature, it will be good for the outcomes. According to Laudon and Laudon (2016), the diverse nature of a team often has an impact on the five importance aspects of a team which can be stated to be conflict, communication, cohesion, satisfaction along with resourcefulness. These five elements have a strong impact on the overall performance of the team and help in ensuring that the work outcomes are in favor of the organization.

Diversity can have a negative impact on team dynamics initially as the different members are not aware of each other`s backgrounds and have a diverse way of performing. Moreover, the manner of communication shall also be very different between the members which may cause certain communication gap between the different members (12).  It might contribute towards conflicts and other misunderstandings which shall thereby lead to a state of confusion between different members and impact their overall performance.

Unlike team dynamics, the diversity is proven to have a positive impact on the work performance as it tends to assist the different members to present a different set of ideas and perceptions in order to solve a particular issue which will thereby ensure that the given objective in hand or a particular problem gets resolved easily with more expertise and greater input (11).

Moreover, diversity is stated to have a positive impact on the satisfaction of employees and fosters creativity in a team. However, in order to make sure that diversity has a constructive impact on the performance of a team, it is the duty of the managers to apply in depth thinking into the procedure and solve the communication issues which exist. 

In order to ensure that the stated outcome is achieved successfully and that the organization is planned well in advance an action plan needs to be formed successfully which shall assist in ensuring that the goal of removing the particular advertisement is achieved at large. Hence, for this purpose, an action plan and its related elements need to be identified which can be stated to be as follows:

• Goals: The first element of the action plan will be to identify the goal of the particular plan. The main goal of the plan is to remove the alcohol advertisements and the main goal must be clearly acknowledged by the different members and it needs to be seen to it that the important aspects of the goal is underlined (12).
• Research areas: An external scanning needs to be undertaken which will then ensure that all the external as well as the internal factors are taken care of and it is seen to it that the different crucial factors as present in the workplace are abided by and the strategies are formed accordingly.
• Strategies: The strategies can be described as the strategies which will be used to approach the different companies in this matter (13). The strategies which will be used to approach the alcohol advertisement issue in hand:
• Advocacy approaches: The key approaches involve aspects like involvement of the leaders, working with the help of mass media, capacity building and building partnership with the particular community groups (14).
• Advocacy techniques: The tactics to be involved comprise of the techniques
• Messages: The key messages given out during the advocacy strategy also forma crucial part of the organization at large.
• Action Steps: The step by step action plan has to be laid down by the group members.
• Timeline and roles: the timeline of the entire techniquealong with the specific roles as well as responsibilities of the group members need to be defined (14).
• Performance indicator: Lastly, the performance indicators to measure the overall success of the plan needs to be present. 

Importance of Evaluating Advocacy Strategies

In order to abide by the particular recommendation which has been stated down by the particular evidence, it can be stated that the following individual strategies are to be adopted in order to ensure that the given recommendation and evidence can be adopted as well as achieved easily. The strategies are as follows:

1. Approaching the sports channel

The sports channels are the one who have been showing the advertisement and hence, it is for this reason that it is considered to be important that the sports channel is approached first and in this strategy it is important that they are made aware of the different consequences of the alcohol advertisements and what are the diverse social responsibilities which they are required to fulfill at large (15). Hence, this can be stated to be the best advocacy approach and will largely result in the welfare of the specific goal at large.

2. Approaching the alcohol company

The alcohol company can also be approached and advocated against. They need to be made understood that the approach which they are adopting is not suitable for the welfare of the organization and for this reason, it is considered to be crucial that they are able to change their advertisement timings to a more suitable one or to the other channels in order to work for the welfare of the youth at large. Hence, for this reason, the company needs to be approached and the organization needs to take measures against them.

3. Approaching the media

The third individual strategy which needs to be followed is approaching the media. Approaching the media will help the particular movement in gaining a wider coverage which will thereby ensure that the association is successfully able to gain impetus with respect to the evidence and that the entire protest is able to gain a wider coverage (14). In this manner, the association will then be able to ensure that they are able to gain support for their movement against the particular alcohol advertisement (16). 

As observed from the scenario and the related case study, it can be largely observed that the matter which is in concern is very delicate and involves a large number of stakeholders which shall then cause to chaos and the formation of certain barriers with respect to this (14). Hence, it can be stated that the following barriers will take place in case an association decides to object to the alcohol advertisements.

The first challenge which can be envisaged will be the resistance which will be faced by the company and come from the Alcohol companies (17). There are various laws and legislatives which they have abided by and invested as huge sum of money in these advertisements which shall then have an impact on their overall sales and profitability.

Impact on sponsorship

The next challenge will be that it will have an impact on the sponsorship activities. In case the brands do not provide their advertisements in the different channels, then they’re less likely to sponsor for the sporting events which will then question their overall execution and reduce the number of events (18).

Resistance from the sporting events who will lose out on the sponsors

When the sporting events will lose out on its sponsors, they will not be able to manage well and their funds will support a blow and due to this reason, they might be affected and show resistance against this advocacy. In this regard, they would like to have adequate number of sponsors and as a chief amount of funds come from these alcohol brands, they might be affected greatly.

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