Developing strategic management and leadership skills

The field of management deals with organizations. Our society could not exist or improve its present status without managers to guide it organizations. Thirty years ago, Peter Drucker, a noted management authority, proclaimed that effective management was becoming the main resource of developed nations, and that it was the most needed resource of developing nations.

Functions of Strategic Management

1. Planning

2. Organizing

3. Leading

4. Controlling

Planning is considered to be the central function of management because it sets the pattern for the other activities to follow. “Planning means defining goals for future organizational performance and deciding on the tasks and use of resources needed to attain them” (Richard Daft). Planning encompasses four elements:

· Evaluating environmental forces and organizational resources

· establishing a set of organizational goals

· Developing strategies and plans to achieve the stated goals

· formulating a decision-making process

Organizing is the managerial function of making sure there are available the resources to carry out a plan. “Organizing involves the assignment of tasks, the grouping of tasks into departments, and the allocation of resources to departments” (Richard Daft) Managers must bring together individuals and tasks to make effective use of people and resources. Three elements are essential to organizing:

· developing the structure of the organization

· Acquiring and training human resources

· Establishing communication patterns and networks

Leading is another of the basic function within the management process “Leading is the use of influence to motivate employees to achieve organizational goals” (Richard Daft). Three components make up the leading function:

· Motivating employees

· Influencing employees

· forming effective groups

The final phase of the management process is controlling. “Controlling means monitoring employees’ activities, determining whether the organization is on target toward its goals, and making correction as necessary (Richard Daft ). Three basic components constitute the control function:

· Elements of a control system

· Evaluating and rewarding employee performance

· controlling financial, informational, and physical resources

Improving Organizational Performance

The performance is a global concept the represents the results of human activities. Organizational performance is “the way in which an organization tries to be effective” (Ricky W. Griffin). An organization’s performance can be measured in many different ways. The most common ways are in terms of efficiency or effectiveness. If organizations are using their resources to attain their goals, the managers are effective. Finally, “productivity is the level of output of goods and services achieved by the resources of an organization” (Ricky W. Griffin) Effectiveness, efficiency, performance, and productivity are all important concepts for managers and organizations.

Communicating and Implementing Change

This work advances a stronger conceptual and empirical understanding of two broad, conceptual communicative treatments for implementing change: programmatic and participatory. These theoretical approaches are elucidated respectively through established communication models, activities, and strategies advanced by previous scholarship within the communication and business disciplines. This article concludes with potential strategies for advancing for research in this arena.

Developing and Leading High Performance Team

High performing teams at all levels are essential for achieving outstanding organizational performance. This is especially so in situations of rapid or major change and during crises. Each team should have:

1. Common vision, objective and direction.

2. High standards.

3. Mutual respect, trust and accountability.

4. Individual sense of responsibility.

5. A sense of team identity.

6. High motivation and team energy.

Definitions of Leadership

Mintzberg’s observations and research indicate that diverse manager activities can be organized into ten roles. For an important starting point, all ten rules are vested with formal authority over an organizational unit. From formal authority comes status, which leads to various interpersonal relations, and from these comes access to information, which, in turn, enables the manager to make decisions and strategies.

The figurehead role: Every manager must perform some duties of a ceremonial nature. These activities are important to the smooth functioning of an organization.

The leader role: This role involves leadership. The leader role encompasses relationships with subordinates, including motivation, communication, and influence.

The liaison role: in which the manager makes contacts inside and outside the organization with a wide range of people: subordinates, clients, business associates, government, trade organization officials, and so on.

The monitor role: This role involves seeking current information from many sources.

The disseminator role: In their disseminator role, managers pass information to other, both inside and outside the organization.

The spokesperson role: In their spokesman role, managers send some of their information to people outside the organization about company policies, needs, actions, or plans.

The entrepreneur role: In his entrepreneur role, managers search for improvement his unit to adopt it to changing conditions in the environment.

The disturbance handler role: This role involves responding to high-pressure disturbances.

The resource allocator role: In their resource allocator role, managers make decisions about how to allocate people, budget, equipment, time and other resources to attain desired outcomes.

The negotiator role: The negotiations are duties of the manager’s job. These activities involve formal negotiations and bargaining to attain outcomes for the manager’s unit responsibility.

Followership

The Courageous Follower is a contemporary classic that redefines the power and responsibility of “followership,” the role of many who must support, confront, engage, foster, and leverage the talents and wisdom of their leaders.

Direct versus Indirect Leadership

The direct leadership is about giving dictations to your people and maybe enforcing yourself as a leader while the Indirect type of leadership has to do with like having thousands of followers without even possessing the role of leadership. The indirect leadership has to do with influencing others and making them your followers indirectly by inspiring them through the character, charisma etc. Leadership is not about ruling people like subjects and taking it for granted; it’s about presenting you as someone who people think should be followed for guidance. It’s about winning the minds and hearts of people.

1.2 Management and Leadership Style

Autocratic

Autocratic leadership can be said to be synonymous to dictatorship where only one person has the authority over the followers or workers. Their decision has to be taken as the golden rule and should never be questioned. They plan out everything and order their subordinates to work according to their rules. For instance, if a company has an autocratic leader as the Managing Director, the employees in the company would have to work as per the rules set down by him.

Bureaucratic

This style of leadership follows a close set of standards. Everything is done in an exact, specific way to ensure safety and/or accuracy. You will often find this leadership role in a situation where the work environment is dangerous and specific sets of procedures are necessary to ensure safety.

Charismatic

Charismatic Leaders, who are building a group, whether it is a political party, a cult or a business team, will often focus strongly on making the group very clear and distinct, separating it from other groups. They will then build the image of the group, in particular in the minds of their followers, as being far superior to all others. The Charismatic Leader will typically attach themselves firmly to the identify of the group, such that to join the group is to become one with the leader. In doing so, they create an unchallengeable position for themselves.

Laissez-Faire

Laissez faire style simply means a “delegate” approach to leadership. Many researchers have found out that those children, who grow under laissez-faire leadership establishments, happen to be the less productive in any group. This was also reinforced by these children making more demands upon their leader, as researchers have come to ascertain, amidst showing little in terms of cooperation as well as the inability to work more independently.

Persuasive

Persuasion is an essential proficiency for all leaders, requiring you to move people toward a position they don’t currently hold. You must not only make a rational argument, but also frame your ideas, approaches and solutions in ways that appeal to diverse groups of people with basic human emotions. Any direct attempt to persuade may provoke colleagues to oppose and polarize. Because persuasion is learning and negotiating process, it must include three phases: discovery, preparation and dialogue.

Participative

The participative leadership style, also known as the ‘participative democratic leadership style’, is a very essential factor in today’s business sector, which does the job of creating and maintaining healthy relationships between the employees and their leaders. This is probably the best type of corporate leadership style that necessarily allows employees to give suggestions and take some of the crucial decisions, along with their manager. However, the final decision rests on the manager himself.

Culture of Organization

Organizational culture is an idea in the field of organizational studies and management which describes the psychology, attitudes, experiences, beliefs and values (personal and cultural values) of an organization. It has been defined as “the specific collection of values and norms that are shared by people and groups in an organization and that control the way they interact with each other and with stakeholders outside the organization.”

Characteristics of Manager

A good manager is the one who can manage his organization successfully and profitably.

The characteristics of a best manager is he should be able to understand every team member’s strengths and weaknesses and utilize every members abilities at his/her best in the interest of the organization and motivate the staff, understand and acknowledge every staff member’s efficiency and reward them accordingly. A good manager is like the good leader who doesn’t say “do it” but says “let’s do it”.

Adapting Management and Leadership Styles

Leading is something we can’t learn in the abstract. We’ve got to do it. There’s not always a choice as to who we’ll lead, and you have to be willing to change the how. The steady slugger who wants to be alone; the creative fireball who’s frequently missing; the expert with personal problems; all has contributions to make. They need different approaches to bring out their best, and we have to adapt the way you lead.

Chapter-2

Support Organizational Direction

2.1 Theories

Transformation Leadership Theory

Transformational leadership is defined as a leadership approach that causes change in individuals and social systems. In its ideal form, it creates valuable and positive change in the followers with the end goal of developing followers into leaders. Enacted in its authentic form, transformational leadership enhances the motivation, morale and performance of his followers through a variety of mechanisms.

Transactional Leadership (Bennis, Bass)

Transactional leadership is a term used to classify a formally known group leadership theories that inquire the interactions between leaders and followers. A transactional leader focuses more on a series of “transactions”. This person is interested in looking out for oneself, having exchange benefits with their subordinates and clarifies a sense of duty with rewards and punishments to reach goals.

Charismatic Leadership (Weber, Corger, and kanungo)

Max Weber’s conceptualization of charismatic authority as a force for change has had a profound influence on the ideas and research of social scientists for several decades. The article explores the impact of Weber’s conceptualization upon one particular group of researchers-the organizational behaviorists. Starting in the 1970s, they began to formulate theoretical models of charismatic leadership in organizational settings and undertook empirical investigations. Similarly to Weber, they saw charismatic leadership as a force for change in organizations. This article examines Weber’s conceptualization of charisma as a force for transformation; explores the extent of his impact on organizational research of the 1980s and 1990s; and draws attention to neglected areas of his theory that have important implications for future research.

Contingency Theory (Feidler)

The contingency model emphasizes the importance of both the leader’s personality and the situation in which that leader operates. A leader is the individual who is given the task of directing and coordinating task-relevant activities, or the one who carries the responsibility for performing these functions when there is no appointed leader.

Situational Theories

Paul Hersey and Kenneth H. Blanchard5 (a co-author of the One Minute Manager) identified a three-dimensional approach for assessing leadership effectiveness:

• Leaders exhibit task behavior (the extent to which leaders are likely to organize and define the roles of followers and direct the work) and relationship behavior.

• The effectiveness of the leader depends on how his or her leadership style interrelates with the situation.

• The willingness and ability (readiness) of an employee to do a particular task is an important situational factor.

2.2 Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is the ability, capacity, skill or, in the case of the trait EI model, a self-perceived ability to identify, assesses, and controls the emotions of oneself, of others, and of groups. Different models have been proposed for the definition of EI and there is disagreement about how the term should be used. Despite these disagreements, which are often highly technical, the ability-EI and trait-EI models enjoy support in the literature and have successful applications in various domains.

Constrainer and Enablers

Some of the constraints that may affect the process improvement and change efforts are Cultural and Behavioral Factors, Organizational Structure, and Technology.   These factors influence incremental and fundamental improvement efforts.   The initiatives weaken because of a company’s failure to consider these constraints, which in turn, limits success of the plan. The organizations, which are more inept to change, thrive on change.   Smaller organizations may have the same constraints if the environment is designed

Studies on Emotional Quotient

Goleman’s model outlines four main EI constructs:

Self-awareness – the ability to read one’s emotions and recognize their impact while using gut feelings to guide decisions.

Self-management – involves controlling one’s emotions and impulses and adapting to changing circumstances.

Social awareness – the ability to sense, understand, and react to other’s emotions while comprehending social networks

Relationship management – the ability to inspire, influence, and develop others while managing conflict

2.3 Applicability to Support Organization Direction

Efficiency

Efficiency in general describes the extent to which time or effort is well used for the intended task or purpose. It is often used with the specific gloss of relaying the capability of a specific application of effort to produce a specific outcome effectively with a minimum amount or quantity of waste, expense, or unnecessary effort. “Efficiency” has widely varying meanings in different disciplines.

Reliability

In general, reliability (systemic def.) is the ability of a person or system to perform and maintain its functions in routine circumstances, as well as hostile or unexpected circumstances.

Innovation

Innovation can therefore be seen as the process that renews something that exists and not, as is commonly assumed, the introduction of something new. Furthermore this makes clear innovation is not an economic term by origin, but dates back to the middle Ages at least and possibly even earlier.

Adaption

Adaptation is the evolutionary process whereby a population becomes better suited to its habitat. This process takes place over many generations, and is one of the basic phenomena of biology. The term adaptation may also refer to a feature which is especially important for an organism’s survival.

Human Resource

Human resource is a term used to describe the individuals who make up the workforce of an organization, although it is also applied in labor economics to, for example, business sectors or even whole nations. Human resources is also the name of the function within an organization charged with the overall responsibility for implementing strategies and policies relating to the management of individuals. This function title is often abbreviated to the initials “HR”.

Organizations and Subunits

An organization is a social arrangement which pursues collective goals, controls its own performance, and has a boundary separating it from its environment. There are a variety of legal types of organizations, including: corporations, governments, non-governmental organizations, international organizations, armed forces, charities, not-for-profit corporations, partnerships, cooperatives, and universities.

A subunit is a subdivision of an official unit. Unit codes of subunits end in a non-zero number between “-001” and “-999.” While official units represent official academic or administrative university entities, subunits are established to allow for more granular control over funds or workflow within the official unit. Subunits are typically associated with individuals, programs, or projects.

Business start up versus Established

Despite their similarities, start-up companies and established small businesses can be dramatically different when it comes to funding. Established small businesses usually have modest profits and rarely become huge money makers. Start-ups, on the other hand, often have lofty ambitions and the possibility of becoming huge businesses in the future.

Turnaround Leadership

1. Leadership during a turnaround is very different from “business as usual” leadership, find out how if differs

2. If you are not comfortable with this “best practices” leadership style, then you must find someone who is

3. This leadership style works but can lead to confusion and resentment, find out why

Chapter-3

Assess Leadership Requirement

3.1 Assess Leadership Requirements

The first and most basic prerequisite for leadership is the desire to lead. After all, becoming an effective leader takes hard work. If we’re not prepared to work hard at developing your leadership skills or if, deep down, we’re really not sure whether you want to lead or not, we will struggle to become an effective leader.

Virtual Organization

A virtual organization is not “business as usual”. It requires a new management approach and an incredible awareness of the issues and challenges that could cause its demise. In a recent focus group represented by twenty members of a single virtual organization, but located at numerous site locations, the following challenges were recorded:

1. Communication

2. Leadership/management

3. Knowledge transfer

4. Processes

5. Infrastructure

Diversity

The concept of diversity encompasses acceptance and respect. It means understanding that each individual is unique, and recognizing our individual differences.  These can be along the dimensions of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age, physical abilities, religious beliefs, political beliefs, or other ideologies. 

Globalization

Globalization describes the process by which regional economies, societies, and cultures have become integrated through a global network of political ideas through communication, transportation, and trade. The term is most closely associated with the term economic globalization: the integration of national economies into the international economy through trade, foreign direct investment, capital flows, migration, the spread of technology, and military presence.

Economic Climate

General economic environment comprising of the attitude of the government and lending institutions toward businesses and business activity, attitude of labor unions toward employers, current taxation regimen, inflation rate, and such.

E-Leadership

E-leadership is no different from any other form of effective leadership except that in e-leadership you have no option but to be very good at it. It requires a high level of transformational leadership because of the highly participative nature of the e-world between E-organizations and e-customers and the interconnectedness between leader and follower with the ever-increasing reality of the blurred lines between the two.

Mergers and Takeovers

In a general sense, mergers and takeovers are very similar corporate actions – they combine two previously separate firms into a single legal entity. Significant operational advantages can be obtained when two firms are combined and, in fact, the goal of most mergers and acquisitions is to improve company performance and shareholder value over the long-term.

Restructuring

Restructuring is the corporate management term for the act of reorganizing the legal, ownership, operational, or other structures of a company for the purpose of making it more profitable, or better organized for its present needs. Alternate reasons for restructuring include a change of ownership or ownership structure, demerger, or a response to a crisis or major change in the business such as bankruptcy, repositioning, or buyout. Restructuring may also be described as corporate restructuring, debt restructuring and financial restructuring.

Integrity Leadership

There is a connection between trust and integrity, but trust is a broader concept. People need to be competent to earn our trust, not just honest. To be a credible candidate for any job, a person needs the skills and personal qualities to be effective in the role. Integrity is also broader than honesty. In addition to being honest, leaders with integrity must behave ethically. A criminal could be honest while breaking the law.

Partnership and Alliances

The Managing Partnerships and Strategic Alliances programmed focuses on deepening your understanding of the strategic foundation, the governance structure and the dynamics of the collaborative process. The programmed discusses the problems and stumbling blocks in selecting, negotiating and managing alliances. Throughout this intensive programmed, both practical and theory are carefully balanced so that you learn not only the frameworks, but also the key behaviors and cross-cultural competencies that lead to collaborative success.

Regulatory Compliance

In general, compliance means conforming to a rule, such as a specification, policy, standard or law. Regulatory compliance describes the goal that corporations or public agencies aspire to in their efforts to ensure that personnel are aware of and take steps to comply with relevant laws and regulations.

Interim Leadership

Recognizing that management teams may lack experience in turning around a business, we introduce experienced turnaround professionals who can step into executive or advisory roles in the business, such as chairmen, CEOs, CFOs, chief restructuring officers, operations, marketing, human resources, non-executive directors and advisers/mentors to boards.

Chapter-4

Plans of Leadership Skills

4.1 Development of Leadership Skills

The leadership skill set in the book comprehensively covers the subject of managing people, from A to Z. It includes how to effectively deal with stress and 22 problematic workplace conditions and behaviors such as bosses, bureaucracy, negative attitudes and personality clashes. Whether we manage one person or thousands, these clearly defined leadership skills are your script for achieving excellence.

Different Methods of developing leaders

Great content delivered well is not enough to help individuals change their behaviors. Assuming good content and capable personnel, the structure of a learning initiative and the methods used to convey knowledge will either ensure success or guarantee failure.

Self help and developmental activities

Training Courses

People need a reason to change. Establish new programs that reward the individuals that are ready to step up. When employees see the advantage of leadership they are going to change their behavior. These do not have to only have to be financial incentives. There are a variety of ways to reward employees. People love to be recognized. It is a good idea to show gratitude through having an employee of the month or posting success stories in the company news letter.

Job Rotation

Job rotation is an approach to management development where an individual is moved through a schedule of assignments designed to give him or her breadth of exposure to the entire operation. Job rotation is also practiced to allow qualified employees to gain more insights into the processes of a company, and to reduce boredom and increase job satisfaction through job variation.

Seminars

Sometimes the traditional approach has its place delivering learning to large or small groups. Some company uses this method as part of a wider blended learning initiative. By itself a group seminar is, in our view, an ineffective method of conveying learning.

Executive Coaching

High impact and participant focused; get one to one coaching right and you can transform individual performance – great goals, great techniques, and great results.

Mentoring

Mentoring is to support and encourage people to manage their own learning in order that they may maximize their potential, develop their skills, improve their performance and become the person they want to be.

Action Learning

Physical activity can be a powerful medium for promoting learning. A team exercise, indoors or outdoors, can bring insights that hours of discussion would fail to reveal. The secret is in debrief and in designing activities to fit with the messages and objectives of an overall initiative.

Self Directed Learning

Self directed learning is a way of creating a situation where learning is owned by the individual and aligned with organizational needs. Individuals take responsibility for decisions about their learning and work with others to achieve it.

Figure: The PRO Model of self-directed learning

Reading Articles

Reading is a means of language acquisition, of communication, and of sharing information and ideas. Like all language, it is a complex interaction between the text and the reader which is shaped by the reader’s prior knowledge, experiences, attitude, and language community which is culturally and socially situated. The reading process requires continuous practices, development, and refinement.

Changing Methodology in Leadership

This model around change leadership came to be when a man named Aaron Antonowsky was doing a health study. He study women and menopause in Israel and part of his study group were women who had been confined to concentration camps during the Second World War.

Learning from Mistakes

Simple: Mistakes that are avoidable but your sequence of decisions made inevitable. Having the power go out in the middle of your party because you forgot to pay the rent, or running out of beer at said party because you didn’t anticipate the number of guests.

Involved: Mistakes are that are understood but require effort to prevent. Regularly is arriving late to work/friends, eating fast food for lunch every day, or going bankrupt at your start-up company because of your complete ignorance of basic accounting.

Complex: Mistakes that have complicated causes and no obvious way to avoid next time. Examples include making tough decisions that have bad results, relationships that fail, or other unpleasant or unsatisfying outcomes to important things.

Developing Leadership versus Recruiting as Needed

The concept of leadership competency development is discussed with an emphasis on the historical approaches versus contemporary requirements. Issues surrounding the notion of inherent leadership talent as compared with developing leadership capabilities are contrasted with the need for some systematic framework from which to address the leadership question.

Council for Excelling in Leadership

The Leadership Council is a group of business people who set aside a portion of their time to provide training and exchange ideas with both leaders and emerging leaders.  The faculty is distinct, as they are business leaders themselves.  They remain active in their respective industries and pursuits.  As such, they deliver real-world, essential leadership skills to excelling individuals and organizations.

Management Diagnostic Tools

A commercially available tool widely used internationally which covers an extensive range of management competences.

Strengths: A genuine self-diagnostic and management and leadership tool, giving clear recommendations for future development. Significant experience from elsewhere can be drawn on.

Weaknesses: Although various versions are available, the main MAP product can take up to 2 days to complete fully, involving in-depth discussions and reviews with trained facilitators. Costs are variable, depending on the numbers purchased and additional financial inducements some support agencies have provided.

Leadership Competencies

There are five leadership competencies:

1. Creates a compelling future

2. Inspires others to achieve

3. Learns and shares knowledge

4. Demonstrates a passion for customers

5. Delivers great performance

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence (EI) refers to the ability to perceive, control, and evaluate emotions. Some researchers suggest that emotional intelligence can be learned and strengthened, while other claim it is an inborn characteristic.

Social Intelligence

Social intelligence describes the exclusively human capacity to use very large brains to effectively navigate and negotiate complex social relationships and environments. Psychologist and professor at the London School of Economics Nicholas Humphrey believes it is social intelligence or the richness of our qualitative life, rather than our quantitative intelligence, that truly makes humans what they are – for example what it’s like to be a human being living at the centre of the conscious present, surrounded by smells and tastes and feels and the sense of being an extraordinary metaphysical entity with properties which hardly seem to belong to the physical world

Ability to Learn

An important skill or ability that is often neglected when we list the qualities of a leader is the ability to learn.  Leaders must have the ability to learn.

Leadership is complex, requiring multiple skills and specific knowledge.

The current situation does not require leadership, it’s stable.  In order to move away from the present and lead into the future, you have to know where and how.

A leader passes on their knowledge and insight to others.

The more you learn, the more effective you become as a human being and member of society

Systems Thinking

Systems thinking are the process of understanding how things influence one another within a whole. In nature, systems thinking examples include ecosystems in which various elements such as air, water, movement, plants, and animals work together to survive or perish. In organizations, systems consist of people, structures, and processes that work together to make an organization healthy or unhealthy.