managing people and ion

8/3/2019 Managing People and ion

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INTRODUCTION:

Leadership is one of the highly valued qualities in a person and public are highly fascinated by

the idea of leadership. Many people believe that leadership is a way to improve their personal,

social, and professional lives.

Many theories are developed to explain the process of identifying and attaining the leadership

qualities. Some of the theories are based on traits or behaviours where as others are based on

qualitative and quantitative methods. These theories are suggested based on studies done in

small groups, large groups and large organisations. These studies give a bigger view of

leadership quality and its attaining process, some of these process are complex and some

present in simplistic way (Northouse, 2010).

In this assignment discussion on various approaches to leadership process are discussed based

on the views from different authors and concluded.

DEFINITION:

Leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a

common goal (Northouse, 2010).

APPROACHES TO LEADERSHIP:

As told earlier there are different ways of analysing leadership quality. Using each of studies

done the approaches classifies leadership based on the general principles into strategic or

managerial (operational) leadership depending on the suitability. Some of the approaches to

analyse the leadership quality are as follows:

The Qualities or traits approach The Functional or Group approach Leadership as a behavioural approach Leadership Style approach Transitional or Transformational Leadership Inspirational or visionary leadership


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QUALITIES OR TRAITS APPROACH:

This approach similar to the traditional way of identifying the leaders or their quality or

traits as Mullins (2008) says that this approach assumes leaders are born and not made. So,

this approach is also called as Great Person Theory of leadership. In his approaches the

focus is given on the person doing the job rather than the nature of job being done. In this

theory the traits of the successful leaders have been studied to identify the similarity or

common personality among them and Individuality or Originality are two of the traits

common among the successful leaders.

However Mullins (2008) has also identified some limitations of this approach which are

mentioned as below:

1) Determining a leader as a Good or Bad leader.2) Every leader has his or her set of personality and if they are compared to find the

similarity the list of traits which are to be identified will be much longer and

agreement over the existence of traits is always argued.

3) Situation is not considered during the analysis and if a leader fails to perform in aparticular situation it does not prove him to be a bad leader.

Rayner and Adam Smith (2009) also had similar views about the approach. They also said

that the results of the approach very much depends of the personality of the leader picked

up for the study. Even women were not considered for analysis indicating lack of leadership

qualities which might not be correct.

Example:

If we consider Dhirubhai Ambani story of success it tells about his pathway to glory and a

successful leader. He has got the leadership quality in him so, he gave a thought of starting

new business even after working as a sales person in his early day. Dhirubhai Ambani could

be considered as one who led Reliance Industries from start to reach the glory where it is

present today.

THE FUNCTIONAL (OR GROUP) APPROACH:

As per Rayner and Adam Smith (2009) this approach generally considers performance of

the leader instead of the traits. This type of approach the main feature is that it suggests of

acquiring the leadership skills. Potential individuals can be trained to have the leadership


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skills and improve their leadership or managerial skills. The limitation for this approach is

that it tells very little about the type of leadership being developed.

Mullins (2008) says that this approach focuses only on attention instead of the leader or

gender. By the use of such approach an aspiring leader can be trained and their performance

can be improved by concentrating only on role which would lead the team to success. As per

Kottersuccessful companies do not wait for the leaders to come along instead they select

the potential and with proper nurturing & encouragement many people can play the roles of

successful leaders.

The general theory on functional approach is linked with the work ofJohn Adair (1983) and

his ideas of action centred leadership where the effectiveness of the leader is dependent of

three major functions i.e. Task Function, Team Function and Individual Functions of the

group leader.

Presently when the business has become too much competitive no company wants to wait

for good leaders to lead the organisation so they generally use this approach to train a

potential leader from within the organisation for example in military the soldiers from

within are trained to lead the teams instead of introducing someone directly to lead the

teams.

Example:

This approach can be applied on any cricket or football team where the quality of captain is

not taken into consideration instead the performance of the team is considered as the

success of the captain. For example we consider Indian cricket team it has many good

players and a successful captain but still they struggle to perform many a times whereas on

the other hand Australian cricket team get success due to their team effort due to which

they as considered as much better team with a very successful captain.

LEADERSHIP AS A BEHAVIOURAL APPROACH:

This approach mainly related to the behavioural studies conducted by Ohio State University

and University of Michigan Institute for Social Research in 1960s and 1970s. This approach

emphasise on the behaviour of the leader.

The research conducted by Ohio State University was based on the effect of leadership styles

on group performance and the results were categorized into two major groups

consideration and initiating structures whereas the research conducted by University of


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Michigan Institute for Social Research with effective supervisors was done and the results

displayed four common characteristics based on which the supervisors were identified as

employee centred or production centred. The results of both the research were similar in

nature. Later on relating the results to McGregors Theory X and Theory Y managerial

assumption Managerial Grid was proposed by Blake and Moutons (1964) which was revised

and renamed as Leadership Grid(Blake and McCanse, 1991).

According to Rayner and Adam Smith (2009) behavioural studies have advantages for

would be managers as these would be much more effective compare to traditional method

of achieving success and this approach offers wide range of options for training and

development for encouraging leadership capacity. Using this approach the type of

leadership being developed can be identified as Managerial Leadership and StrategicLeadership. Even Mullins (2008) also describes the same results with four different types of

leaderships from McGregors Theory X and Theory Y and the main forces which are helpful

in deciding the type of leadership.

Example:

Organisation these days are hiring fresh graduate to work for them even though they lack

the experience of practical implications of the theory studied. However, the organisations

know that these graduates have the potential to lead teams to success with little guidanceand training to gain the maturity of a successful leader.

LEADERSHIP STYLE APPROACH:

According to Rayner and Adam Smith (2009) the difference between leadership styles are

mainly due to the leaders attitude towards the group members and also the groups

responsive behaviour. Mullins (2008) mentions that the leadership is classified into three

styles as described by Tannenbaum and Schmidt (1973). The three style of leadership are as

follows:

Authoritarian or Autocratic This style can be called as Boss Centred or TopManagement where the decision making mostly handled by the managers.

Democratic The decision making is handled by the middle managers but alongwith the group. Focus is more on the group rather than individual.

Genuine The decision making is handled by the managers but he or she passessome decision making power to the other team members to allow freedom of action.


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Mullins (2008) also describes about various factors which influence the styles of leadership

such as business competition, change in nature of work organisation, etc.

Example:

In any organisation we can see that there are various level of management such as higher

management, who take the corporate decision for the organisation, then the middle

management who take the responsibility to handle the performance of the organisation and

then the lower management who handles the work force to get the work done.

TRANSACTIONAL OR TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP APPROACH:

This approach is considered to be one of the recent approaches to leadership. According to

Northouse (2010) Bass and Riggo (2006) suggested that the popularity of this approach

might be due to its emphasis on essential motivation and follower development. Based on

increasing business competitiveness and optimum use of resources available has resulted in

rise of two fundamental forms of leadership given by Burns.

TRANSACTIONAL LEADERSHIP: According to Mullins (2008) such type ofleadership emphasises on clarification of objectives, work task and the outcomes.

Transactional leadership increases self interest of the followers or team. SimilarlyRayner and Adam Smith (2009) also says that these forms rely on the leaders

capacity to negotiate with appropriate follower behaviour.

TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP: It is a process of achieving higher level ofmotivation and commitment among the follower. Here the vision and objective are

created instead of being clarified and the main activity done is improving the

performance of the company.

Rayner and Adam Smith (2009) mentions of a study conducted by Rosener (1990) on some

men and women about their management styles and according to Alimo Metcalfe (1995)

Roseners study (1990) reveals that men are more likely to adopt transactional leadership

and female management style is similar to that of transactional style. After the study it was

also suggested that there are gender difference in the use of transformational style.


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INSPIRATIONAL OR VISIONARY LEADERSHIP APPROACH:

According to Mullins (2008) successful leaders having inspirational leadership are usually

identified in terms of strong vision, emotions for the followers and a sense of identification.

Kreitner et al. mentions inspirational leadership is similar to transformational leadership as

in both the leaders inspire or transform the followers by modifying the goals, values and

beliefs. Whereas writers such as Burns and bass identified leaders by their action and

impact of those action have on other people.

On the other hand Rayner and Adam Smith (2009) refers to Mullins (2007) and Legge

(2005) and says that it is difficult to develop inspirational leadership quality effectively

unless the leader has the skills and only needs to be improved or it can be called as a

combination of both Quality or Trait approach and Transformational approach.

Example:

Nobel Prize laureate Mother Teresa has inspired many others to help the poor people which

led to the foundation of Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India which takes cares of the

poor and orphans. She had the quality to inspire but replacing her is very much difficult as

the same quality cannot be achieved but it has to be self-inspired within a person.

CONCLUSION:

Various theories mentioned above reveals that leadership can be classified in various ways.

In older days it has was considered as a born quality among the individuals and it could not

be developed among other individuals however the modern theories classifies leadership

based on different factors and every classifications are useful. Due to both social and

political changes in a modern organisation the responsibilities are shared and distributed

among various individuals in the organisation for it to be successful. So, organisations are in

constant search of potential individual as these people become special assets for the

organisation.

From the above view of various writers it can be derived that leadership is one of the

important characteristics in a manager. It is true that successful organisations are always

lead by a leader with born abilities still the organisation hires managers to handle various

activities and instead of using traditional approaches to identify these manager modern

approaches involving motivation and training are used.


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REFERENCES:

1. Boody, David and Paton, Steve (1998) Management: An Introduction, 5th Edition,Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.

2. Mullins, Laurie J. (2006) Essentials of Organisational Behaviour, 2nd Edition, Harlow:Pearson Education Limited

3. Northouse, Peter G. (2010) Leadership: Theory and Practice, 5th Edition, London: SagePublications Ltd.

4. Rayner, Charlotte and Adam Smith, Derek (2005) Managing and Leading People, 2ndEdition, London: Chartered Institute of Personal Development

5. www.dhirubhai.net6. www.nobelprize.org
http://www.dhirubhai.net/http://www.dhirubhai.net/http://www.nobelprize.org/http://www.nobelprize.org/http://www.nobelprize.org/http://www.dhirubhai.net/


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During the course module of Managing People and Organization we have worked in groups for

10 weeks performing group task based on various issues and case studies. Below mentioned are

some of our group work with details of the task with relevant evidences and the process using

which we did the tasks:

1. Hole in the Wall:Hole in the wall is a case study based on problems faced by the management. This was

the first task given to us as a group. As all the group members were new to each other it

took some time to know each other and work on the task given. So, we decided to study

the case individually and gathered the ideas about the problems being faced by the

organization called Hole in the wall. Then brainstorming was done to get the possible

solutions for the problems and lastly reasonable solutions were agreed by the group.

2. Challenges to Management:As a group we had to give a presentation on the topic and during our group discussion

first we collected all sort of challenges faced by management then we regrouped the

challenges to the relevant field such as financial, technological, etc. then the details of the

challenges were discussed. After the presentation was prepared the task of presenting

was distributed among the members so that everyone can explain the issues related the

field in which they have been working.

3. Warehouse construction planning:We had to work a group task for planning for a new Warehouse construction based on

the planning elements. So, we identified the tasks involved in a warehouse construction

and related the tasks to the planning elements. After getting the draft for the tasks

relating to the planning elements the presentation was prepared and presenting task

was distributed among the group members.

4. Recruitment methods:Based on the class room studies we had to do a presentation on some of the recruitment

techniques. We divided the desk work for collecting the details for the recruitment

techniques and were distributed among the group members via email to prepare the

presentation which was prepared by one of the group members as agreed initially.

5. Negotiation task:Negotiation task was sort of role play where we worked as a labour union and the othergroup (Group 1) acted as the management. First we had a discussion within the group to


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finalise the demands which has to be presented to the management. Then after the

negotiation task a mutual agreement was made between the labour union and the

management.

6. Induction program:In this task we were asked to present the concept of induction in different way instead

of regular PowerPoint Presentation. So, we decided to do a role play where a new

employee was being inducted in the company. Roles were distributed among the

members. Finally the role play was performed in the class.


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GROUP AND TEAMS:

According to Mullins (2009) citing Schein (1988) says that groups definition in term of

psychology is:

Any numbers of people interacts with one another, are psychologically aware of one another and

perceive themselves to be a group

In other way it can also be told that if a collection of people who share the following

characteristics can be called as a group:

Definable membership Group Consciousness Sense of shared purpose Interdependence Interaction Ability to act in a unitary manner.

Teams can be defined as a group of people gathered together to perform some specific tasks. All

the teams are same as groups however all groups are not same as teams. According to Belbin the

difference between groups and teams can be done based on various factors and the most

notable factor is size. Groups are larger in size when compared to teams as it consists of four to

six members. In teams the leadership is rotated whereas in groups lone leader is available.

TYPES OF GROUPS:

Groups are classified based on the objectives being achieved:

FORMAL GROUPS: Such groups are formed to achieve specific organisational objectivesand are concerned with the balance between the official works.

INFORMAL GROUPS: These groups are formed based on personal relationships and theobject set is related to personal relations.


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FORMATION OF GROUPS:

Every group under goes some development and maturity stages also known as the formation

process. The cohesiveness of the group is affected by based on the degree to which a group has

undergone the formation process. These formation processes are time taking still very

important for formation of a good group.

According to Mullins (2009) citing Bass and Ryterband (1979) told that there are four stages of

group formation:

Mutual acceptance and membership Communication and decision making among the members Motivation within the group and productivity of the group Control and organisation of the group.

On the other hand Mullins (2009) mentioned Tuckman (1977) proposal which best fits the stages

of group development.

FORMING: This is the initial stage of group formation where number of individuals arebrought together who distinguish the purpose of the group and prepare the term and

conditions for the group, roles and responsibilities of the individuals. In this stage group

members try to create their impression on other members.

STORMING: In this stage the members start getting involved in the task given and giveput their view more openly and forcefully. A disagreement among the members is there

and they challenge the nature of the task taken for the group. This might lead to clashes

and aggression among the group members. However still the storming stage is very

important because the destiny of the group can be decided in this stage itself. If the

succeeds to go through this stage then reforming agreements for the working of the

group will be formed or the group would not sustain.

NORMING: In this stage the clashes and aggression among the group members arecontrolled, Guideline and standards will be developed for acceptable behaviour. Here

the members start co operating in order to prepare the plans, standards of

performance for successfully fulfilling the purpose of the group.

PERFORMING: After successfully progressing through the earlier stages of developmentthe group would have created a proper group structure and cohesiveness to work as a


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team. This stage is also considered as maturity stage where the group concentrate on

achieving the purpose for which the group was formed and the performance of the

group will likely be the most effective.

ADJOURNING: This stage refers to adjourning or closure of the group due to variousreasons one of which might be completion of the task or achievement of the purpose.

However Jaques (2000) mentions Lawrence in Bligh (1986) with similar stages and the final

stage is called as

INFORMING: In this stage the group start communicating with other groups andagreeing how it will further improve the performance.

FORMATION OF OUR GROUP:

In course module of Managing People and Organisation the students were divided into groups

to perform some specific group tasks. Our group consisted of 6 members who were selected

randomly. As the group was formed in the starting of the course all the group members were

new to each other however with the time when we started to work on the group tasks all the

members started to know each other and good co ordination was formed in between us.

ROLE IN THE GROUP WORK:

Every member had some essential responsibility to perform and as every individual in the

group was having good experience of working in teams and in various fields their contribution

was much needed. In each and every task we had a group discussion to distribute the

responsibilities and decide how to work. In a particular group task for WarehouseConstruction I took the lead role as I have a technical background as well as having experience

of working in a construction company which helped in identifying the basics required for

performing the task. Working in a group to perform these tasks has helped me identify and

develop some of my qualities which are much important in the current scenario of working

culture.


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PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT:

Every person in our groups have gained or developed knowledge about various qualities of

being a manager which is a position every one of the MBA students will be handling in the

future. Similarly, I have also developed knowledge about some important qualities or topics

based on which we have performed tasks and also the way we did our group work.

I have learned about the working of a group by knowing the various stages of group

development through which all the groups has to undergo to become a successful group. Earlier

it seemed like a group should give its best performance from the very first day it is formed or

else the group should be considered as a bad group but now it is quite clear that giving the best

performance is not the key to success for a group instead developing the group to give best

performance is main idea for success.

From the case study on Hole in the Wall the importance of communication and motivation

was quiet clear to me and this are some of the skills which are quiet important in any

organisation. From the case study we can know the consequences of an organisation are there is

a lack of communication and motivation.

During the task ofChallenges to ManagementI came to know about various difficulties faced

by a manager and the importance to handling these challenges to succeed. If the managers have

qualities to perform well and lead a team then these challenges are needs to be handled as a

team because the team will be having members from various cultures, educational backgrounds

and experience and for the team to success a balance has to be maintained among the group

member along with handling the internal and external challenges faced by the group while

working. Motivation and self inspiration are some other important skills a manager should be

having. By working in a group it can be learned that the group success never depends upon the

leader but the performance of the group in this situation we can take an example of a football

team where the performance of one player cannot lead to team to victory whereas a motivated

players can perform as a team and good team would have more chances of achieving success.

Negotiation skills are another important set of skill which I have developed as it can be noticed

that negotiation is even a part of our daily life whether in professional or personal life. During

the task our group played the role of Oxbridge Council Union and I learned that even for

issues to change in break timing can lead towards negotiation with the management and to be

successful in negotiating it is much needed that both the sides are profited or else we can say to

create a win win situation. However unsuccessful negotiations might lead to clash between

both the groups.


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I always wondered why psychometric tests and aptitude tests are conducted before any campus

recruitment even though they are not required during the job for which the candidate has

applied. However, after going through the task based on Recruitment and Selection I got an

answer for the why? and its importance during the recruitment. Also I have gained knowledge

about various other methods of recruiting people for the difference between recruitment and

selection as recruitment only creates a pool of potential applicants whereas selection is the

main process where the suitable candidate is appointed.

The last and foremost skill which I have improved in me is my own communication skills as

before I was bit hesitant in talking before a crowd. However, while doing the group work we did

presentations and role plays for various tasks which helped me improve my communication

skills, still I have a lot to develop as this is one of the important skill that a manager possessthese days.

CONCLUSION:

Working in a group for this course module I came to know about many skills required for a

manager and managing the organization effectively. There were also some fields in which I

gained some knowledge and having some general ideas are very much necessary for any

manager. Overall I would say that working in groups was much pleasurable and useful to me.


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REFERENCES:

1) Mullins, Laurie J. (2006) Essentials of Organisational Behaviour, 2nd Edition, Harlow:Pearson Education Limited

2) Jaques, David (1984) Learning in Groups: A handbook for improving group work, 3 rdEdition, London: Kogan Page Limited.

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