Bernadine Healy

There is a sea of difference in being a leader and manager of an organization. Each one of the two persona can fit in a type of organization. But in the case of the Red Cross in the US,public interest, administrative responsibility and some of the recent ethical obligations confronting public administrators in their day to day decision making. Also examine the recent trend in privatizing government functions and appeared to have not fit at all occupying the presidency. She was a victim of the position not for becoming a tough, passionate, too-driven leader, but for not coming a manager of the international Red Cross that is largely resistant to change.
It has been said that managers “do things right” while leaders, on the other hand, “do the right things”. Managers are concerned primarily with managing things. Leaders, on the other hand, are show concern for leading people. Dr. Healy’s short stint in the Red Cross showed that she was more than a leader than a manager of the gargantuan relief service organization, whose organizational grandeur, financial resources and manpower are greater than the Philippine military establishment.
In fact, she was described as “a tough professional who ruffled feathers but made things happen” and “a change agent for a culture resistant to change”. But amidst controversies generated from her tough program thrusts, changes and innovations and her strong leadership in the international Red Cross, she had to cave in to pressures even as the powerful board of governors had decided to fire her out. It came to pass that the Red Cross Red is after all a conservative, non transparent organizations with heavy decentralization down in its hierarchy, with people and chapters enmeshed in turf wars and to some extent rocked with financial anomalies and a blood business that has to be rectified. It was described to have a militaristic management and a politburo-like board of governors. Dr. Healy, who came in too passionate like a savior knight