Leadership - week 5

   Leadership and management are both  supposed to have a charismatic people with that positions that should have self-confidence and influence power. They are both a kind of force that has to motivate the regular workers. But there are strong differences between them.
   Management is a official form of taking care of the teams of people co-ordinated by an individual chosen by the higher means , that is a manager. Manager has to control his team's work , plan everything what has to be done and do everything he can to achieve the goals he is expected.
To do that he has to take a good care of his people and motivate his team.
His work is seen on paper , he is known to be a manager , it is his work he doesn't have a high level of emotional involvement in his job. He is directed to results.
   Leadership can be an official or unofficial force that inspires and motivates people by showing them a role models from an individual that is the leader. That doesn't have to be high in the company's hierarchy , as people can call him the leader because of his decisiveness , self-confidence , knowledge and ideas that motivate and inspire them. Leader aligns people with a vision of change.

   Blake and Mouton developed a way to describe and evaluate the different styles of management. First published in 1964 , it was called 'Managerial Grid' , which provides a basis for comparison of managerial styles in terms of two production and people.
   Concern for production shows the amount of pressure placed by the manager on accomplishing the tasks with achieving the highest possible production level and gaining profits. This is represented along the horizontal grid line.
   Concern for people is the amount of pressure placed by the manager on his inferiors and other individual managers. It is shown on the vertical grid line.
   The grid on the left , shows that the Organisation Man Management has the equal amount of both of the concerns as it is situated in the middle. Impoversihed Management has lower amount of concern for production than concern for people as it is situated in the bottom left. It is easy to see a comparison of managerial styles in terms of these two principal dimensions as it provides five basic combinations of degree of concern for production coupled with degree of concern for people.

   In January of 2010 I took a part-time job. I was a member of the renovation team hired to paint a new metal construction in one company's stockroom. I was responsible for painting the highest parts and two other members were doing both preparation and painting lower parts of that construction. Our manager had to take care of the team of us three and two other teams that were working on mechanical issues for the same company. If comparing to the 'Managerial Grid' by Blake and Mouton , I identified his work style to be the tam manager with nine point nine rating and high concern for both production and people as he was always there if any team needed to know anything or had any kind of issues to talk about with him. He wanted us to complete our tasks as fast as possible with the best possible quality. However , he had always checked if we are not going to fast , and reminded us about the quality. He was always working with plan and always knew what to do if any problems occured.

   Bill Gates , the famous creator of the Microsoft , had given his tips for a good manager based on his lifelong experience. In this tips , Gates explained that a good manager has to clearly brief tasks to his people and explain how they should measure their achievements. He claimed that people will take seriously the project deadlines if they took part in setting them as unachievable goals udermine the organisation. Bill Gates explained in his tips how important it is for the manager to work regularly with his people so that they will do the work better than the manager can at some point and achieve expected goals. Similarly to the manager I worked for , the working style that is the most suitable for Bill Gates is the team manager , as he suggested that the right work with the team of people may help in gaining profits , which shows that he has got a high concern for production and for people as well.

   In conclusion , there are significant differences between the leadership and management. Blake and Mouton explained five basic combinations of the working style of a manager or leader and created the 'Managerial/Leadership Grid' in 1964 showing different types of concern for people and for production. A . Bill Gates had given tips for a good manager based on his experience and explained that a good manager or leader should know how to work with his team to make as many profits as possible.

Bibliography:

- Gates , B. (2010) Tips for a Good Manager [Online]. Avialable from - youthindia.wordpress.com [Accessed: 10th December 2010]

- Mullins , Laurie J. (2010) Management & Organisational Behaviour. Ninth edition. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.

Organisation Culture - week 4

   People of different nations develop their national identity by the use of different language , by having their characteristic appearance , cooking in a proper way with their national spices etc. Same things happen to the employees of companies. They develop the identity of people working in the same company , what is called organisation culture.

   There are many different companies in the Wycombe's Eden Centre , in which the visible aspects of organisation culture are easy to see.
   Language or jargon of people working within one company is being uniqe as they use words that have a certain meaning for them and not many people will understand it. For example , employees of phone shop like the T-Mobile or the 3-store when speaking to their customer can ask their colleagues about any offer in the way the customer will not understand as he doesn't know their technical jargon. Same situation happens when an employee of The Perfume Shop is being asked by the customer to see if they have Herrera Sexy Man perfume in stock , and he or she just asks the colleauge to check the maroon 212 in stock.
   People working for the companies have some obvious unwritten rules and expectations like saying hello to people passing by just to make them visit their shops or explaining their customers why should they buy in their shop. They are also expected to provide their customer as much help as possible to make them feel comfortable.
   There are some rituals or habits being a usual thing for people representing different types of organisational culture. For example , in the Tesco , when paying for their products , customers are being asked for coins to make the cashiers work easier when giving the rest of the banknotes received. In phone shops , dealers are often walking around the shop and try to catch their customers. In sport shop , the staff often explains how good their products are using their own sport experience. In a cafe or a restaurant when ordering a food , the waiter often say that there is a better meal deal in the same price to consider.
   The communication of the employees in different companies is a highly visible difference as waiters , barmans and chefs in a restaurant try to communicate as good as possible , because they are meant to work as a team , whereas phone shop dealers talk to each other , but not a lot because they want to gain as many customers as possible for their own , because the more customers they personally get , the more money they can earn.

   Last but not the least , the way the people dress and their work pace are a uniqe thing for the companies ther work for. In Vision Express , the salesman is wearing smart suit and very often glasses. He or she is walking with a normal speed taking care about everything they do. They try to look clever so that their customers get the feeling that they are being served by the experts that want to work good and take their time to do it. Phone shop dealers often wear a part of their daily outfit that makes them look like the dealer , for example a shirt with a logo , t-shirt , jacket , tie or all together. Their working pace is low. When it comes to barmans , waiters and chefs in a cafe or a restaurant , they all wear similar uniforms , they all work as fast as possible to serve as many customers as they can in the shortest time.

   Different types of organisational culture might be classified  by a number of ways. Handy described four main types of organisational cultures.
   Power culture defines an organisation with a central power source and strong individuals being a force of influence coming from that source through the organisation. There are not many rules and procedures as effectiveness of that organisation relies on trust , empathy and communication within it. For example , Starbucks cafe is a organisation that may be definied with power culutre. There is a store manager in every store , who is a strong individual with the influence from the strong power centre that is the board of the company's directors. That manager influences it's employees so that they work good as a team as they communicate well , trust each other and then gain profit to the company without any examples of big bureaucracy.
   Role culture is a way to define a company that is based on bureaucracy , logic and rationality. The company with a role culture depends mainly on the strength of it's experts that are working on making the company better in cases of production , finance , sales etc. The interaction between them is controlled by rules and co-ordinated by their managers. Position is more important than the individual and proclaims the main source of power. The example of a company with the role culture in the Wycombe's Eden Centre is Tesco. Tesco is a big company selling the products of other companies working in co-operation with and it's own made by it's manufacture. Tesco has got it's experts , controlled by the board of directors. Tesco's experts can improve many things , but first they have to ask for permission. They can have ideas for better ways for the company but without agreement with the company's directors , they can't do anything.
   Task culture is the kind of work culture that is to be noticed when different companies or strong individuals are working together on single projects. Music festival is one of the most simple examples of project , in preparation of which , the task culture happens. To prepare that kind of event , several companies or small firms must gather together. There must be a company providing food and drinks. Security must be provided by national forces e.g. Police or a private security company. To make the stage , a proper scenery and sound system , another company must be hired. After the festival , they might get together to do some more of that events or never meet again.

   Person Culture gather together people doing similar or same types of work. They share the same office space and use one structure to work easier. For example , cardiologist , nurse , gynecologist and dentist are all working in medicine. They can open their own private clinic even in a flat. They can hire one secretary to sign their patients in and take care of the paperwork so that they can share all the costs equally between them and often earn more money than they would in hospital. Usually , they would be using much better equipment than they would in hospital as well.

   When trying to classify culture into one of the four types described above , the main problem in my opinion is that in some companies there may be more than one type of organisational culture occuring. For example , in an law firm , when one of the lawyers finds out a new method with solving their main problems , he can't do it  without permission of the rest of the firm's lawyers as it may cause the bad reputation for the firm. Then there are both person and role culture occuring in an organisation. To choose one of more than one types occuring it needs to be seen , which one of them is stronger. In that example it's obvious that it would be the person culture as it is a law firm. But it might get more difficult if all of the organisation culture types occur in a big company like Tesco.

   In conclusion , culture is the way of identyfing one to a group. There is a thing like organisational culture , when people of different types of companies develop their identity. Handy explained four types of organisational culture , but it may be difficult in some examples to classify only one type for some companies.

Bibliography:

- Mullins , Laurie J. (2010) Management & Organisational Behaviour. Ninth edition. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.

- Primary research: walk around the Eden Centre in High Wycombe.

Power and conflict at work - week 6

   When I started my degree at Bucks New University over two months ago , I joined BNU Buccaneers , the American football team playing in university league. After a five weeks the leauge began. We have lost our first game by three scores. Then our offensive part of the team realized that it was their fault. The defense was playing well , but offense had problems with scoring points. They were about to start some serious conflict as players had different ideas about how to deal with , none of which was good enough. Then the head offensive coach solved the problem as he viewed the game tape to the whole team and the players were told about their mistakes. All of our coaches knew what to work on during the next training session.

   We turned up on that training session and we've been working on our roles exactly the way the coaches wanted us to. We were told how to perform better and it all started to work much better than it used to.
One week after , we had another game , which we won. We scored twenty two points whereas our opponents scored nothing. Our strategy worked.


   John French and Bertram Raven conducted one of the most notable studies on power and identified the five bases of power in 1959 that is coercive , reward , expert , legitimate and referent power.

Sometimes manager has to use something more...

   The coercive power is a problematic source of power. It can cause a bad behaviour and dissatisfaction in the workplace. The common tools of coercion are threats and punishment. Coercion should be used as a last resort as it is sometimes neccessary to punish or threat to somebody at some point , but it should not be used as a daily thing. For example a manager should clearly tell his team what they have to do and how. If they do it wrong because they thought that they are smarter or did not pay any attention to what he said , they should be punished. Manager should use a threat to make them work better next time , for example tell them to work the way he says or else they will be fired next time , but not threat them if they work well.

   Managers and people higher in the hierarchy of the company are often in power to reward others. This is the reward power. Raises, promotions, , training opportunities, simple compliments and desirable assignments are the examples of the rewards controlled by the directors of the company. The problem with the power of rewarding is that managers need a permission from their supervisors to give rewards. Very often they can only use rewards that have a low value for their workers. If that situation happens , the effectiveness of their work may get lower and the managers's power weakens as well. Similar , when managers are able to use rewards that workers are looking forward to be rewarded with , their work efficiency increases and mangers's power increases. For example , when an employee works hard and gets more profits for the company and manager knows that he has a family and wants to buy a new house , he should be able to give him a salary raise so that he would work even better as he knew that he can gain even more money. Giving him a desirable assignment as a reward in that case would be much less efficient as his work motivation would rather get lower if he had seen that he is expected to work much harder for the same salary.

   When there is a person in the company that has a knowledge and skills that enable him to understand a situation , find a solutions , judge well or outperform others , he is likely to be listened by others. If he shows a right working methods , people will trust him and respect to what he does. His work will have more value and other people will be looking forward to have him as a leader. This is how the expert power works. For example when a regular employee helps a manager in making decision in front of others by showing him advantages with explanation and manager makes that decision making benefit for the company , he is thought to be a person with a proper knowlegde , decisiveness and confidence , that makes him a leader in front of his colleagues.

   Legitimate power of an individual happens when there is a leader , which leadership is formal. He was given that position by a higher means , like for example a manager , employees may but as well may not like him , but he was given that position by chief excecutive and they can't do anything about it. He should use that power to show that he is good enough to be the manager by using his decisiveness and confidence to help people working in his team and co-operate with them so that they could see that he is the right person for his position.  He should not rely on his legitimate power as his only way to influence others because it takes more to than that to be a leader.

   Referent power comes from charisma, charm, admiration, or appeal on an individual in a workplace. It happens when one person likes , respects and strongly identifies with another person that has these characteristics at some point. These kind of power can be a big responsibility as that kind of person can easily influence everything from what people buy to whom they elect to office. It is good to have that person in a workplace as he or she makes everybody feels good. When combined with other sources of power, it can help in achieving a great successs. For example , celebrities have referent power as they can influence everything from their fans , which is why they appear in as many adverts as possible.


   If the conflict happens within the company , it can be solved by the right use of the following strategies.
   The policies of human resource management, for example carrying out a system of equal pays within the equal levels of the company's employees.
The company can also provide equal opportunities for their employees such as same amount of days off or chances to attend the free qualification raising courses.
   The firm must be ensured about the good communication kept within it's employees so that the managers and regular workers will know exactly what they have to do , where and how much time they can spend on it etc. When the communication is good between the managers and their teams , the members of that teams will not hesitate to ask for feedback or consult any issues with their managers. Then the decision making process will be easier as all advantages and disadvantages were clearly presented , the amount of mistakes will reduce and what comes from these is the lower probability of conflict.
   The board of company's directors must ensure their employees that they have a right to complain. The grievance policy and it's procedure are significant in that case as the employees can work better if they know that they have a right to complain if somebody or something is making their tasks more difficult by interrupting them etc. They must know that if they have complained , the right procedure will be carried out to solve this. On the other hand , they must know also that the grievance policies may be used against them if they cheat or somebody complained about them. The grievance policies and procedures must be set up well as it may be used wrong and not fair if somebody did something on purpose to make somebody else fail. When solving problem of grievance policy , there should be a sort of investigation to be carried out to gain proofs of a real fault or a lie about the subject complained.
   Everybody in the company should be aware of the disciplinary procedure. The company should have that kind of procedure clearly presented to it's employees so that they knew what is going to happen if they are try to take care only about their needs. They must know that they are a team and they are working for the company that gives them an opportunity to gain experience and a knowlegde with earning their money.
The discipline is not difficult to be kept if people are taking care about the company. If they are not , then they should be warned and reminded a procedure about the discipline. If that is not working , they should be fired. However , if they are taking good care of the company , they should be exaulted by their managers to show them that they are being taken seriously.

   In conclusion , when it comes to being in groups , there are always problems that have to be solved. To solve that problems it is important to know what caused them and then fix it. Conflicts are caused by the wrong cooperation between people with different sources of power. If they are being solved by the right use of the strategies mentioned above they are not being a serious problems anymore or may not even happen again.

Bibliography:

- Leadership training. Leadership Styles. [Online]. Available from: http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_84.htm [Accessed: 30th October 2010]