Factors in organisations that would influence choice of leadership styles

“Identify factors in organisations that would influence choice of leadership styles and explain why leadership styles are likely to positively affect team building”

Leadership styles are currently different across the globe, especially between Asia and America. Culture makes the way how things are done, but less so what is done. The differences of styles in different parts of world clearly reflect the stage of development of the economies, like companies of Asia. As Asian companies seek access to global capital markets, they will move toward professional managers who will employ leadership styles most likely to those now used in the United States and Europe.

Mostly Asian companies rely more on professional employees, and as professional services become of more importance in Asian economies, there will be less autocratic style of leadership and more participative and even empowered style of leadership will emerge. Asian leadership will show more resemblance to that of the West. But significant cultural differences will remain unchanged causing economic and geopolitical rivalries within Asia and between Asian countries and the West will continue and perhaps grow.

Family and political connections:

Cultural differences are very important, For example, family leadership of business which passes by one generation to another, including in large companies, occurs in very similar ways in both parts, East and West, but is more common in Asia.

Li Ka-shing ( Hong Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa and Cheung Kong holding group), for instance, runs his business closely and is planning to pass the leadership of his firms to his two sons. Similarly, in America the heads of some largest firms, both publicly held and private, belong to the families that founded the firms, but there is less freedom of action for executives and boards in America than in Asia.

But in America, more commonly firms are run by professional managers who are replaced by other professional managers, either as result of retirement or of replacement by the board of directors of the firm. The better companies have much sophisticated programs for developing executives within the firm, and in most cases, choose a next chief executive officer from among them.

In Asia, succession in most cases is passed on to the siblings. In Li’s case, he is passing it to his sons, while Jack Welch chose to groom CEOs for General Electric.

To a significant level, large American firms are at a higher stage of development than many Asian firms, they have passed from founder’s family leadership to professional management and to capital obtained from the capital markets rather than obtained from government directly or indirectly or from family sources, in this transition they have adopted particular styles of leadership responsive to boards often led by outside directors. It is possible, but not certain, that Asian firms as they develop, follow this evolutionary path. In Asia political connections so important for top business leaders as compared to Western countries, whether in democracies or one-party states are not unknown but are much less important in America and Europe. It is a common characteristic of Asian top executives that they have strong connections that are important to their businesses. In America, the CEOs of very large firms often have less or no direct connections to top politicians-the government is treated at arm’s length and business is done by business people. There are some off course, and there is deep political involvement, but it is much less common than in Asia. Furthermore, leadership is of three levels where team is the base of it, so as a result of this all leadership styles affect in positively towards team building.

“With reference a relevant leadership model, explain how an organisation’s working practices could be improved, by collecting feedback from others.”

Assumptions:

Involvement of people working in organization for decision-making improves the understanding of the issues.

People are more committed to actions when they have involved in the relevant decision-making.

People become less competitive and more collaborative when they work on joint goals.

When people make decisions together, the social commitment between them is greater and thus increases their commitment to the decision.

Several brains deciding together make better decisions than on brain alone, for such situation participative leadership style is widely used.

Style:

A Participative Leader, instead of taking autocratic decisions, seeks to involve other people in the decision making, possibly including subordinates, colleagues, superiors and other stakeholders. Often, however, as it is within the managers’ control to give or deny control to his or her subordinates, most participative activity is within the immediate team. The question of how much influence others are given in the process of decision making, may vary on the manager’s preferences and beliefs, and a whole spectrum of participation is possible.

Businesses in the world need to focus greatly on smarter working practices in order to remain competitive in the global economy and to prosper, leading experts have claimed.

Most business leaders acknowledge that smarter working practices will help to improve staff wellbeing and make businesses more inclusive.

In particular, experts say that it is necessary to reduce the average length of the working week in the organizations, as well as cutting down commuting time. Both of these things always lead to worker stress and ill health.

Some experts also say that technology could play an important role in helping to improve working practices in the in today’s worstile and sophisticated business.

Recently in UK, figures from the Office for National Statistics were published which showed that broadband internet connections have helped the number of home workers increase by 18 per cent over the last nine years in this decade.

Similarly, data from BT Business recently indicated that faster internet connections had helped the bosses of small businesses achieve a better work-life balance.

“Explain why it is so important to make effective and efficient use of your team’s knowledge and skills while planning to achieve work objectives”

TEAM EFFECTIVENESS

The importance of work teams appears to be gaining strength as jobs get long and complicated, organizational structures get more complex, and more and more companies become multi-national in scope . In today’s corporate environment, it appears the team – not the individual – holds the key to business success.

DREAM EFFECTIVENESS

As companies restructure, downsize, and reinvent themselves, the new roles being created which often tend to be team-oriented. Organizations are becoming flatter, leaner, and more agile and efficient. A prominen and most commont feature of effectiveness today is satisfying customer needs. Many jobs and projects are becoming increasingly complex, less time available for completion, and global in scope due to fast changing business world. All these factors collectively are making it increasing difficult for one person to perform a single job. Today’s workplace uses teams as the basic work unit for example surgical units, airplane crews, research and development teams, production crews.

Although teams are found everywhere in organizations but most employee related functions are individualized (e.g., selecting, training, evaluating, rewarding). Such a disconnection between an organization’s need to foster effective teams and its natural tendency to focus on the individual employee can create many problems. In addition, some research suggests a key reason why some teams fail is that employees are not well prepared to make the transition from individual contributor to team member.

One of the keys to develope high performing teams is to remember that successful teams do not simply happen. They take much effort and time. They take proper guidance and support from the team leader. They require an organizational culture which enables and enhance team work. To achieve a high level of team performance, we must be knowledgeable about the factors which influence team dynamics and effectiveness.

To understand how teams work, many authors have proposed models of team performance. Each of these models presents several variables that the author posits influence the effectiveness of teams. Some of the models highlight group structure and interpersonal dynamics, while others tend to focus on the talent and motivation of individual team members. Still others emphasize factors external to the team itself (e.g., a company’s culture). Some models were proposed more than three decades ago in 1970s; some were developed within the past few years.

“Identify and describe barriers to delegation in the workplace and one mechanism to support delegation in the workplace”

Managers often have a number of excuses for not delegating: “I can do it better myself”; “My employees just aren’t capable enough”; “It takes too much time to explain what I want to be done”. The real reason may be the manager is simply too disorganized or inflexible to delegate work effectively.

Other barriers to delegation are insecurity and confusion about who is ultimately responsible for a specific task – the manager or the employee. Managers cannot sidestep their responsibility to higher ups simply by delegating difficult or unpleasant tasks. They are always accountable for the actions of their employees – a fact that makes some managers reluctant to take a chance on delegating. Others fear that delegating reduces their own authority. Still others feel threatened if their employees do too good a job. Some employees on the other hand, want to avoid responsibility and risk. They prefer that their managers make all the decisions. These barriers can be overcome if managers follow certain guidelines for effective delegation.

Supportive elements for delegation:

Factors from manager point of view:

An  effective and  talented  manager  would  delegate,

who  has  interest  in  developing  the  subordinates.

An overload  of  work  could also  force  a  manager to delegate decision making power.

The  task  may   recur  in  the  future or  frequently

The  Tasks in  hand  are critical for long-term success   and  genuinely do need your attention

The  subordinates  have  the  necessary  experience, expertise   to handle  the   tasks and ability that could help manager and other higher officials .

The task’s timelines and deadlines, for example.

i : How much time is there available to do the job?

ii: Is there time to do the job all again if it’s not done properly the first time?

iii: What are the possible consequences of not completing the job on time?

iv: Your expectations or goals for the  task(s)

v: How important is it that the results generated are of the highest possible standard and quality?

vi: Is an “adequate” result good enough?

vii: Would a failure be crucial?

Viii: How much would failure impact other things?

FACTORS FROM   THE STAFF POINT of view:   

The   staff has the expertise to complete the job.

The delay is acceptable, if the staff can’t complete.

The staff is keen to take the opportunity to grow/ develop.

“Explain techniques that could be used to monitor the outcomes of delegation in the workplace”

After the process of delegation is completed then comes the measurement stage of its outcomes and mostly same techniques are used for measurement, which are often used to measure the performance at a broader level, for company performance. Same 8 step process is used for the outcomes of delegation which is most commonly used as performance measurement.

To evaluate how the subordinates are performing, for this some targets are set before the delegation, as goals are set for organisation this stage is of two parts, data about the performance of subordinates and the benchmark.

To control the things to ensure that subordinates are doing the right things. Today managers do not control their subordinates mechanically (measurement of time-and-motion for control as during Taylor) as couple of decades they used to, but managers still use different measures to control, while allowing some space for freedom in the workforce. Organisation create measurement systems that involve particular actions they want to be executed by branch employess. Then they want to measure the performance to see whether the employees have taken those actions. Officials need to measure behavior of individuals (subordinates in this case) then compare this performance with requirements to check who has and has not complied. Often such requirements are described only as guidelines. Do not be fooled. These guidelines are legally requirements and those requirement are designed to control the things. This measurement of meeting with these requirements is the mechanism of control.

To budget the process of any kind is sometime answer to improving performance for example providing better technological equipments could improve the performance.

To motivate subordinates after giving significant goals to achieve and then using measurements of performance for better outcomes. Motivation is one of three elements of performance; ability and environment.

To celebrate the accomplishments keep subordinates tie together and give them a sense of their individual as well as collective relevance, celebration also helps in performance improvement because it brings attention to the goals and promotes competence and attracts resources.

To promote, at broader level of company performance managers convince political superiors, stakeholders, journalists, and citizens that their company is doing good job but to monitoring the delegation outcomes this stage is used to promote the work of subordinates.

To learn from the delegation is also a very important stage, this involves that how whether it has brought desired results or not. This stage’s data is also very useful in future decision making.

To improve the things that we learned at previous stage, this means to identify places that need improvements.