Management style to fit employee needs

Examine the argument that managers need to be able to adapt their management style to fit the needs of the employees. Your essay must include a minimum of six citations and two examples from different texts to support your arguments. No late, or partial, submissions will be accepted.

There are several people said that managers need to change their style to be able to deal with different situation, but some people are not. Changing management style can help managers gain numerous of advantages such as to be more successful, be able to communicate more effectively with employees to understand what the employees are expecting from their manager. The purpose of this essay is to examine whether managers need to change their management style to fit the needs of the employees. This essay is divided into two sections which are the first is counter arguments that purpose managers do not need to change their style and the second is arguments that managers should change their style to fit the needs of the employees. This essay will argue that management style change depends on situation, people can change it, and they are not fixed.

It can be argued that managers do not need to change their management style to be competent to deal with any situations and to be able to fit the needs of the employees, due to some reasons. First of all there are some structures and circumstances that have to maintain one style of management to work more effectively such as military structure or urgent circumstances. Indeed, in the military and other urgent circumstances, people tend to be told what to do next rather than wasting time on asking for some ideas (Shah, 2010). For instance, there is a terrorist attack at some place or soldiers have to rescue victims from there, it will take time and the mission may fail if a leader is democratic and ask so many people to give solutions (Kartha, 2011). In addition, employees may prefer a leader makes a decision and tell them what to do than having a discussion, when time is stressful. To be reducing stressful some employees are willing to become children and follow exactly what autocratic leaders said (Cloke and Goldsmith, 2002 cited in J. Mullins, 2007).

Another reason why managers do not need to change their style is contingency theory. Contingency theory argues that organizations should not expect that their leaders are able to lead in every situation; companies should place their leaders in situations that are ideal with their leadership style (Northouse, 2010). Thus, it can be seen that if leaders are in the wrong situations, organization should move the leader to another context that leaders are able to solve. Furthermore, Fiedler (1967 cited in Robbins, Bergman, Stagg and Coulter, 2008) stated that there are only two ways to improve leader successful that are change the situation to fit the leader and change the leader to fit the situation. Hence, managers do not have to change their style when they have to deal with different situations. According to contingency if a leader cannot deal with a group situation, company should change a leader who is competent to solve that task. For instance, if the group was rated as highly unfavorable but was led by a relationship-oriented leader, the group should replace that person with a task-oriented leader (Robbins, Bergman, Stagg and Coulter, 2008).

On the other hand, there are also some reasons that recommend managers should change their style to fit the needs of the employees. Firstly, managers should change their style when they move from a culture to another. It can be seen that each organizational has different culture, so managers cannot use the same management style to all the culture. Indeed, organizations are different, face different situations and require different ways of managing (Robbins, Bergman, Stagg and Coulter, 2008). In addition, the contingency approach said that in multicultural organizations, leader should understand that there is no one best way of communicating, effective communication is depends on the situation. Effective communication is the precondition to leaders understands their employees and knows what employees are expecting. For instance, during a crisis manager may prefer to tell subordinates exactly what to do to avoid discussion; however, discussion between the manager and employees might be accepted if time is more tranquil (E. Hynes, 2011). E. Hynes (2011) also claimed that different cultures possess different work values and communication styles. Therefore, managers must adjust their style to be able to communicate with employees of all culture to fit the needs of their employees. Moreover, national culture is an important factor that might help recognize which leadership style will be most effective (Robbins, Bergman, Stagg and Coulter, 2008). Successful leader do not use a style to all situation. They adjust their style depend on the situation to work more successful. For instance, works in China might not be effective in Australia or France (Robbins, Bergman, Stagg and Coulter, 2008).

Hersey (1988) argued that successful leadership is achieved by selecting the right leadership style, which is contingent on the level of the followers’ readiness. In this case, followers’ readiness as defined by Hersey is people who are competent and confidence to accomplish a specific work (Robbins, Bergman, Stagg and Coulter, 2008). Hersey invented four leadership styles that are telling, selling, participating and delegating to match with four kind of readiness that are ” unable and unwilling”, “unable but willing”, “able but willing” and “able and willing”. According to situation leadership model managers should adjust their style base on followers’ readiness to become more successful leader. In the same line of argument Mullins (2007) argued that managers should help subordinates to develop in readiness by adjusting leadership styles through the four styles of telling, selling, participating and delegating. For instance, if followers are unable and unwilling to do a task, leaders need to change their style into telling style; if employees are able and willing, leaders can change their style into delegating style (Hersey, 1988 cited in Robbins, Bergman, Stagg and Coulter, 2008).

Contingency theory seems to be recommending that managers do not need to change their style to be able to fit the needs of the employees. Contingency theory stresses that managers are not effective in all situation. Hence, there are two ways to improve leaders successful that organization should change a leader to fit the situation by another leader who is able to solve it, and organization also can change the situation to fit a leader by restructuring tasks (Fiedler, 1967). However, from the evidence provided organizations are different, face different situations and require different ways of managing (Robbins, Bergman, Stagg and Coulter, 2008). According to situation leadership model managers should adjust their style base on followers’ readiness to become more successful leader. Thus, as a consequence, managers still need to adapt their management style to fit the needs of the employees.

This essay has attempted to examine whether managers need to be able to adapt their management style to fit the needs of the employees. While the evidence expresses that manager does not need to change their style because manager is not effective in all situations and organizations can improve leaders effective by change the situation to fit the manager or change the leader to fit the situation, the reasons managers should change their style can arise from organizations are different, face different situations and require different ways of managing and successful leadership is achieved by selecting the right leadership style, which is contingent on the level of the followers’ readiness. As a consequence, I consider that managers need to change their style to be more successful and be able to fit the needs of the employees.