Week 5 - Leadership

Week 5 – Leadership

Leadership and management can often be mistaken as the same thing, however this is definitely not the case. Managers need certain skills in order to be good at what they do, these are –

• ·         organisation
• ·         planning
• ·         staffing
• ·         directing
• ·         controlling 

A good manager should have some leadership skills, as directing staff can fall under leadership. It is believed that management is more important than leadership, this is because some groups may already be motivated enough to carry out their given tasks, and some individuals can find leaders dominating. Managers stick to the book more than leaders as they have to carry out company policy, whereas leaders follow their own intuition. Leaders can often be beneficial to a company as they help to motivate staff. In most groups it is common to find that the manager doesn’t emerge as the leader, the leader is normally a subordinate member with talents and skills that can help lead the group in certain directions. Leaders don’t try to control other members of the group, instead they let vision, strategies and goals be the guide-post for accomplishment. Conflict can sometimes arise if a natural leader shines through the group that is under a managers supervision, they could have different views and ideas which would lead them to clash. The manager could also feel like his authority is lessened as the group may look to the leader more than the manager. There are some key areas in which leaders and managers vary, these are –

• ·         The manager administers; the leader innovates.
• ·         The manager is a copy; the leader is an original.
• ·         The manager maintains; the leader develops.
• ·         The manager focuses on systems and structure; the leader focuses on people.
• ·         The manager relies on control; the leader inspires trust.
• ·         The manager has a short-range view; the leader has a long-range perspective.
• ·         The manager asks how and when; the leader asks what and why.
• ·         The manager has his or her eye always on the bottom line; the leader’s eye is on the horizon.
• ·         The manager imitates; the leader originates.
• ·         The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it.
• ·         The manager is the classic good soldier; the leader is his or her own person.
• ·         The manager does things right; the leader does the right thing.

(alan murry, becoming a leader, 1989)

A leader is followed naturally, and it is within the groups free will to follow the leader. However a manager has to be obeyed if you want to keep your job. A manager may not necessarily be the best leader, but he or she would have gained their position through loyalty to the company or good organisational skills. A leader is more likely to have been born with leadership qualities.  

I was at my high school for five years, and through those five years I became extremely familiar with the leaders of the organisation, be it the teachers or pupils. There were some important leaders at the school which were imperative to the schools goals. The highest person up in the school was the headmaster, although he wasn’t a great leader. He did possess the right attributes to be a good manager though, he was very organised, controlling, managed his staff well, always had an appropriate plan and he knew which direction he wanted to head in. However the pupils at the school didn’t see him as a leader, he focused more on the structure of the school as opposed to the pupils and teachers in it. There was a few natural leaders though, when I was at sixth form the person in charge of both upper sixth and lower sixth was known throughout the school as the person who can push you in the right direction. He was always willing to help out students with school work and also problems outside the school gates, he was definitely a ‘pace setter’ from Golemans leadership theory. He had a strong drive to achieve what he sets out to do, whether it’s his own goals or the goals of others. And if you had work that you struggled with he strived to help you out with it. He was an effective leader because he was very approachable and always helped you out when you needed a push in the right direction. I studied ICT and computing for A-Level and my ICT teacher was a great leader. He was very focused on setting you up for the long term, he made school work relevant to the work place and often discussed various jobs that an A-level in ICT could help you get into. So he was very focused on providing a long term vision, this would put him under the ‘Visionary’ leader from Golemans theory. 

Conclusion –

This blog summarises the main differences between leaders and managers and it helps show that managing and leading are two different ways of organising people. Managers follow company policy and use rational methods where as leaders use passion to motivate co-workers. A good example of this is that David Beckham, an ex footballer who is known for his leadership skills went to the 2010 world cup even though he wasn’t picked for the squad. He accompanied the team for motivational purposes, where as the manager put across the aims of the team, and followed strict policy in order to get his team to achieve the best it could.

Week 4 - Organisational Culture

Week 4 – Organisational culture

Organisational culture is something that every business or organisation has, everything they do reflects upon their culture. A good definition of organisational culture is - ‘a body of learned behaviour, a collection of beliefs, habits and traditions, shared by a group of people and learned by people….’ (Hofstede, 1984). There are three sections to organisational culture that can be represented using onions layers. The outer layers are clearly visible making up the visible aspects of the culture, the middle layers represent slightly deeper aspects of culture where as the centre shows the basic beliefs on which the organisation is built upon.

The visible aspects are made up of a range of different things, including –

• ·         Language & jargon
• ·         Mottoes
• ·         Stories about past
• ·         Unwritten rules and expectations
• ·         Rituals and habits
• ·         Role models
• ·         Atmosphere
• ·         Management style
• ·         Communications
• ·         Way people dress
• ·         General pace of work

Innocent are a good organisation to look at regarding the visible aspects of culture as they don’t really fit the mould of your typical organisation.  Innocent take a very laid back approach in their management style, there is no set uniform and the Innocent offices look more like a social club then actual offices. The language they use to portray the business is very normal, using slang words and using jokes in advertisement to really connect to their customers. The way Innocent started is also extremely different to the way in which most businesses are set up. The current owners started the business selling smoothies at a festival, and above their stall was a sign asking whether they should all give up their day jobs in order to continue with the smoothie business. They also make decisions by putting up different proposals on a big roulette style wheel, they then spin the wheel and go with whatever idea the crosshair lands on! Everybody expects innocent to be environmentally friendly and produce, good honest natural products. Which through research and recent advertisement, they do both.

Handy in 1993 came up with a model with four examples of different organisations, these are as follows –

Power Organisations – Handy describes this culture as a spiders web. The business can be either small or large and normally family owned. The closer you are to the centre of the web, the more power, responsibility or influence you have. An advantage to this type or organisation is that they can respond quickly to events, however the businesses success  strongly revolves around the ability of the people in the centre of the web. Typical attributes that this kind of business will attract in a person are power orientated and politically minded, who don’t mind taking risks and do not rate security highly. These types of businesses are judged purely on results and low morale is often a common factor. Lower level employees must accept the fact that they have little say in how the business is run. This type of culture can often have a high staff turnover. However if managers get it right it can also lead to attaining a happy workforce if the aims of the organisation are set out in an appropriate manner. An example of this type of organisation could be John Lewis, its originally a family owned business and the vast amount of important decisions made by the company will come from the head office, as opposed to the shop floor workers at the John Lewis stores.

The role culture –

This culture can be illustrated as a building supported by pillars, each pillar helps hold up the building and the top of the building (where the decisions are made) is dependent on each pillar holding it up. This organisation has different specialised areas which are over looked by a narrow band of senior management at the top of the building. The various specialised areas are controlled by role and procedures defining the job and the authority that goes with it. A person can only be as powerful as their role, many rules and procedures are set out and they are the chief method of influence. In order for this culture to be successful the work and responsibility must be delegated in an appropriate manner. This type of culture is more suited to a market that is in a stable condition, or one that has a long product life cycle. This type of organisation finds it hard to change and adapt quickly. This culture is not well suited for some ambitious people who are power orientated and focus more on results than the method itself, unless they are high up at the top of the house. The employees within this culture can feel secure and have a good chance of improving skills in certain areas. They are rewarded with different salaries, and have a good chance of promotion within their branched out area.

This culture could be applied to the higher levels of Tesco, the top part of the building could be represented by the head office, and the pillars by the different departments under them. For example, a marketing department, finance department, human resources department etc. Each department is crucial to Tesco, and if one of them were to fail it would have a huge effect on the whole of the business.

Task Culture -

Task culture is strongly based on team work. Different departments must pull together and collaborate with one another in order to achieve certain goals. This could be represented as a net, and some strands of the net are thicker than the others, and the place that these strands meet is where the power is located. This could be explained by looking at an example, a phone company will need different departments to work together. The research and development department will work alongside the marketing department to establish new technology that the customer desires. So the marketing department will tell the research and development team what the customers expect from new or existing products. The marketing department will gather the information and the research and development team will then make a product that has these qualities.

Person Culture –

This culture isn’t usually found in business, this is due to the fact that the culture revolves around the needs of the people in the organisation. And the vast majority of businesses have corporate aims that overlook the needs of the people in the organisation and focus more on things like profit. The power is shared and every member has the right to express their opinion, there is not managerial hierarchy or structure.

There are some problems you face when trying to put businesses into these set types of cultures, some businesses will overlap due to varying departments or stores that will have different managers. For example some franchises, although overlooked by the franchisees owner can have varying goals and aims and general ways about doing business. Each department will have someone in charge, and the people in charge of different departments will also have different beliefs and may choose to have varying rules and regulations. It also depends on the departments size, if it is smaller then it may choose to adopt some factors from the person culture, where each employee gets more of a say. Where as in a larger department with different levels of hierarchy (managers, supervisors etc) will struggle to adopt the person culture due to the size of their department.

Conclusion –

From completing this blog I have learnt that different types of culture suit different businesses, and that it is difficult to place businesses into set cultures due to some overlapping and different departments and stores doing things slightly differently. The blog also shows the importance of culture, if the business sets up in the wrong way organisational wise it could fail to succeed. Visual things are also extremely important to businesses, if we like the visual culture of a business we are more likely to use its services or buy its products.

Week 3 - Motivation

Week 3 – Motivation

Improving Staff Performance

There are two different types of motivational theory, content theories and process theories. Content theories assume people have a set of needs which they pursue and process theories assume individuals set their goals and calculate how to achieve them. I will now explain one of the process theories, the goal setting theory. This theory states that employee performance is directly linked to task performance. Goals give direction to employees about what needs to be done and how much effort is required to complete the task. The main source of motivation is the willingness to work towards the attainment of the goal. The goals set to employees must be well thought out, achievable but at the same time not too easy. Feedback also needs to coincide with the goals, feedback can help regulate the goals difficulties and aids the employees to get more involved and thus leads to greater job satisfaction. As well as the advantages of this theory, there are also some limitations, these are -

·         At times, the organizational goals are in conflict with the managerial goals. Goal conflict has a detrimental effect on the performance if it motivates incompatible action drift.

·         Very difficult and complex goals stimulate riskier behaviour.

·         If the employee lacks skills and competencies to perform actions essential for goal, then the goal-setting can fail and lead to undermining of performance.

·         There is no evidence to prove that goal-setting improves job satisfaction.

McDonalds has based its success on the motivation theories having altered only some aspects of them. 'McDonalds' adheres to four simple principles, which give the possibility to increase the performance of its employees:

1. The company must elaborate different systems of motivation for every department.

2. The personnel must have clear and attainable aims. It is better to have one aim per a person.

3. The aims must change: managers should have one aim for half of a year. For example, at first a manager examines the number of clients, then he/she examines the number of returning clients; and then he/she should analyse the increase in business sales. This method gives the possibility to find new abilities of employees and to check new methods of work.

4. The rise of salary amount must be sensible for an employee.
The 'McDonalds' company applies three components of the motivation system: financial encouragement, non-financial encouragement, and social.

There is an extremely obvious link between McDonalds’ motivation theory and the goal setting theory discussed in this blog. McDonalds have looked at various motivational theories, both content theories and process theories and then applied and updated them to suit their organisation. They have clearly integrated the goal setting theory into their own motivational system, along with updating and adding in some more factors that the company felt was appropriate.

Conclusion – An effective business needs to maximise employee performance, and the best way to do that is with a well-motivated work force, so the way in which McDonalds motivates its employees is crucial. After studying a range of varying motivation theories I think McDonalds have done extremely well to integrate different theories into one system that has been proven to work through McDonalds’ standard quality of the production and all round high performance levels. This blog has also shown how important it is for a company to understand motivational theories and apply to them their specific business.

Week 2 - Motivation

Week 2 – Motivation

There are two different types of motivational theories, content theories, and process theories. Content theories assume people have a set of needs which they pursue and process theories which assume individuals select their goals and choose how to get them by a process of calculation. Today I will look at one content theory, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. This theory is made up of a pyramid –

The theory has five stages, starting at the bottom. In order to continue to the next step you must fulfil all the needs within the current step. The first step involves basic human survival needs. Only when the lower stages are fulfilled can you start to worry about the higher order of needs, influence and personal development.  

I feel Maslows theory is particularly relevant to me because of the way it is set out, I’d find it impossible to reach the self-actuastion stage without fulfilling the lower stages. If I had problems at home or with money and couldn’t afford food, drink or shelter then there would be no way I could reach the self-actualisation stage.

My motivation for starting my business management course was that I want to be successful in life. Being surrounded by a business orientated family I have seen what it’s like to be successful in business. And I want to be equally as successful, when I finished my A-Levels it seemed an obvious choice to further my education and love for the subject at university. My family has always wanted me to go university and the majority of my friends also went to university, which was enough motivation for me to do so. I had fulfilled the first three steps and was comfortably sitting at the top of the pyramid, and the attributes in the top two steps are what this course can do for me, for example achievement, status, responsibility, reputation and most importantly personal growth and fulfilment. The university course can help me to grow both as a person and academically, it gives me responsibility, status and I will gain a better reputation when I have completed my degree and will make me feel more fulfilled.

When I was in year 11, the last year of school my dad passed away. This was an extremely important time in my life and I became extremely de-motivated when it came to finishing coursework and revising for my GCSE’s. This took away some crucial factors on Maslows hierarchy of needs including the belongingness and love needs and safety needs feeling less stable and losing an important family relationship. Alderfer’s ERG theory is similar to Maslows in the respect that it’s set out in a similar, hierarchical pyramid.  However you don’t need to completely fulfil the lower stages before you can progress to the higher stages unlike Maslow’s theory. I can also relate to this theory, because although I lost a lot of the lower stage attributes I still progressed to the higher stages of growth and managed to revise and finish of important pieces of coursework. My family and teachers at the school helped me to stay motivated and stay on track, and the fact that I wanted to do well and get into sixth form was also a big motivator. Herzberg’s theory is difficult to relate to this as its factors that affect someone in the work place, however being at school does share some similarities to being in the work place, good supervision working conditions and colleagues (being fellow students or teachers). These are all factors that can lead to dissatisfaction, however in my experience the people involved in these areas helped to motivate me to succeed. If I could do anything differently I would have tried harder to focus on revision to attain better grades.

From looking at a range of different theories and applying them to different periods of my life I have learnt how to use the different theories discussed in the lecture and also gained an insight into how the theories would be put into pratice in real businesses.