Tasks on Management and Leadership Skills

1.1 INTRODUCTION:

This academic essay is related to strategic management and leadership in McDonalds. The purpose of this assignment is to understand the impact of decision making in an organisation i.e. McDonalds. In this cut throat competition which is prevailing in the market, it is my understanding that leadership and proactive strategy plays vital role in overall organisation’s success. In addition to this it has become apparent that strategic management and leadership operate at parallel level in an organisation.

1.1.1 STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT:

‘It deals with the most fundamental and basic question that involve the very existence of the whole organisation and guide the whole company’s future.’ (Mullins,1985)

Strategic management entails both strategic planning and implementation, and is “the process of identifying and executing the organization’s strategic plan, by matching the company’s capabilities with the demands of its environment.”(Gadiesh and Gilbert, 2001)

In layman’s term strategic management provides overall direction to the organisation. This in turn entails specifying the organisation’s mission, vision and objectives, developing plans etc.

1.1.2 LEADERSHIP:

Leadership is defined as ‘influence, that is the art or process of influencing people so that they will strive willingly and enthusiastically toward the achievements of the group’s mission. Visionary leadership inspires the impossible: fiction becomes truth. (Lynch, 1997)

In leadership, people run the organisation to one place or another for the achievement of its objectives. Leadership is a great tool in achieving success for the organization, not just through charisma, but through good judgement,proper motivation of employees & effective utilization of materials.

1.1.3 LINK BETWEEN STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP:

Due to a rapidly changing world, organizations face incredible pressures in delivering immediate results. This necessitates for strategic management because there is a great need to maximize every available resource to achieve the organization’s goal.

To manage an ever increasing demand for company effectiveness, there is a great need for strategic leadership to approach these conditions & priorities. For any ongoing business, it is mainly important to implement strategies through effective leaders.

Real strategic leadership means taking responsibility for the future as well as what is happening today. A primary goal of strategic leadership is gaining a better understanding of the business conditions, the environment and the leading indicators that identify new trends and situations that may arise. According to the situation, leadership styles can be varied like autocratic, democratic and charismatic and so on. In any organisation it is required to have a good strategic management with good leadership skills. These two must be in parallel positions for the organization’s success.

1.2 LEADERSHIP STYLES ON DIFFERENT SITUATION IN MCDONALD’S

As I have taken McDonald as case study, I would like to discuss the management style that operates in this company. Based on my understanding, McDonald operates with a Democratic style of management. This realisation comes to me while I am working with the company and it gives freedom and flexibility of change according to different situations. In this style, the employee and people associated with the company have more participatory role in the decision making process.

McDonald has a democratic style and there is a less gap between manager and employees. They have two way relationships between them. They have a comfortable working pattern. So the manager can easily get the feedback from the employees. Also on the other hand, the employees understand the situation and they follow the rules without any difficulty. There are same levels of working. According to the different situation they have a different style of leadership. In this particular approach, the store manager has all power to run the branch but still allows employees to share their ideas and insights.

Also in McDonald, every employee has a participative role in the decision making process. All employees have to work with their strengths and provide input on how to delegate work within the team. The management gives more importance to work in a team rather than doing individually. In McDonald, ideas move freely amongst the group and discussed openly thus ultimately achieving their objective. This works both ways for the company by fulfilling individual objectives in line with the overall objective of organisation.

The management of this organization motivates the employees to do more work by involving them into decisions which really affects the objective of the organisation.

This particular approach influences the productivity of employees and they feel important to be a part of the organisation by providing a value. They lead all the employees to the same level and the manager always tries to know the strengths and weakness of employees. To overcome these difficulties, they provide appropriate training & career development programmes.

McDonald has flexible working hours which provides stress-free environment. They are free to ask with the manager about schedules. The way McDonald management adapts to different situations, a strong relationship is being formed between the subordinates and the managers.

1.2.1 OBJECTIVE OF MCDONALDS:

The main objective of McDonald is to make people aware of each product on offer, feel positive about it and remember it. The right message has to be communicated to the right audience through the right media. Because of this, McDonald need to give importance & understand the value of both employees and customers. Happy employees serve well and results to satisfied customers. This serves as a win-win situation for both organisation and employee. McDonald has continuously done internal marketing & this is important as it precedes external marketing. It goes in line with the ultimate aim of creating not just service leadership but management service. This delivery process is the key to achieving the aim of the company.

1.3 IMPACT OF LEADERSHIP STYLE ON STRATEGIC DECISION:

Good leadership is adapting to any changes at any time & doing the right things at the right time. Because of democratic style of leadership, employees can work comfortably and they can share their ideas and insights with the management. Also in McDonald, managers effectively delegates work to their subordinates and give them full control and responsibility to the tasks. Managers welcome feedback on the result of initiatives and the work environment. Strategic decision has to be made by leaders who have the ability to take effective decisions and adapt to changes in any situation.

Because of democratic leadership, employees and managers easily understand the situation and cope with it. They work freely and comfortably. In McDonald all employees have a right to participate in the objective of organisation. McDonald has a strategic decision which is implicated and formulated by leaders and managers of the organisation. First they decide the future plans and objective of McDonald and how to get there in minimum time. They also motivate people to do more work and they appreciate their work by giving the performance award at the end of month.

1.4 CONCLUSION:

From above discussion, I came to a conclusion that in adapting democratic style McDonald is really effective in providing value to employees. Although this style may bring out differences in ideas, it still ends up with formulating a common decision. McDonald’s management & leadership style is useful as well as to other organisations where managers and employees easily understand the situation and work accordingly. Strategic management and leadership correlates with each other. Without making any effective strategic decision, leadership cannot work and it cannot reach to the final objective of an organisation.

1.5 Bibliography:

1 Gadiesh and gilbert Arit and James(1998)”Harvard Buisness Review on Leadership”(U.S.A)

2 LYNCH, Richard”(1997) Corporate Strategy” (third edition published 2003)

3 MULLINS,Laurie (1985) Management and organisational behaviour(Eight edition)

4 http://www.coaching-business-to-sucess.com/leadership-styles.html

5 http://www.scribd.com/doc/36681688/Mcdonalds

TASK 2 LEADERSHIP STRATEGY

1 INTRODUCTION:

These case will focus on how leadership and management theories emphasis on current thinking on strategic decision in an organization. It is focused on how these theories help the organization to meet success. In leadership strategy, the leaders of the organization should create the unique and valuable market position, while the goal is to support the organization with activities that fit together in a complementary way. In recent years increasing business competitiveness and the need for the most effective use of human resource has focusing attention on how leadership strategy revitalize organizations.

Early leadership theories focused on what qualities distinguished between leaders and followers, while subsequent theories looked at other variables such as situational factors and skill levels. There are many theories on leadership that are emerging in today’s work environments. While leadership styles may differ, the one thing they all have in common is their objective to lead individuals toward a unified goal.

2 LEADERSHIP STRATEGIES:

2.1 Transformational leadership:

Transformational leadership is also known as relationship leadership and it focused upon the connections formed between leaders and followers. It is a process of engendering higher levels of motivation and commitment. The emphasis is on generating a vision for the organization and the leader’s ability to appeal to higher ideals and values of followers, and creating a feeling of justice, loyalty and trust. Transformational leadership motivates followers to do more than originally expected and the extent of transformation is measured in terms of the leader’s effects on followers.

Transformational leadership motivate and inspire people by helping group members see the importance and higher good of the task. Leaders are focused on the performance of group members, but also want each person to fulfil his or her potential. Leaders with this style often have high ethical and moral standards. Leaders with this style often have high ethical and moral standards.

2.2 Participative leadership:

Participative leadership is one that takes the input of others into account. These leadership encourage participation and contributions from group members and help group members feel more relevant and committed to the decision making process. In participative theories, however, the leader retains the right to allow the input of others. Involvement in decision making improves the understanding of the issues involved by those who must carry out the decisions.

In this leadership, people are more collaborative when they are working on joint goals. Also in this style, a participative leader, rather than taking autocratic decisions, seeks to involve other people in the process, possibly including subordinates, peers, superiors and other stakeholders. Participative leadership is a style of leadership that involves all members of a team in identifying essential goals and developing procedures or strategies for reach those goals.

2.2 Leadership theory work in ALICON company:

Alicon group is committed to green environment and is in the process of achieving ISO management systems standard. Alicon group is working with various OEMS on the innovative projects for reducing the weight of Aluminium components for protecting the environment through improving the fuel consumption of vehicles. Alicon group is creating to various domains including Auto, Agriculture, Marine, Medical, Locomotive, Extreme sports and Power sector. Alicon group has been in the forefront in developing new and challenging products for its customers.

As Alicon is conducting many sectors, communication is a key element in relationship, and also transpires into key elements for leadership strategies. By practicing outstanding skills, leaders can maintain strong relationships with those they are leading. Alicon generates greater awareness of the products including them to transcend their own self-interests for the sake of the organization. Relationship-building is an important quality for leaders to possess because it builds trust between the followers and the leaders. Leaders of Alicon give special concern to the growth and developmental needs of the followers. Leaders are more likely to give importance towards success, demonstrate self-confidence and emphasis positive aspects of the vision of company. At the end of the month they evaluate performance of the employees and motivate them towards achieving the overall aim of the company, and based on their performance the employees are getting bonus, promotion. By making the right decisions, they demonstrate their commitment to turning that vision into reality; and by doing so successfully, they instil in the others the confidence to trust in their leadership.

On the other hand, in the participative style in Alicon, where the leaders sells the idea to the team. They also describe objectives of the company and they discuss with the team that how to achieve that to meet the company’s requirements. In Alicon, participative leadership helps bring more minds together and hence there are more ideas and suggestions that are generated. However because of this style, several people belonging to different levels of activity are asked to contribute to the worth of a particular decision, new ideas emerge. So the decisions become more practical and implement able and creatively rich. In Alicon, there has a less gap between leaders and followers. Since everyone has put in some or the other effort towards the planning process and everyone has a feeling of importance, it is quite evident that they will work towards implementing their own suggestions as well. It becomes easier for leaders to generate results.

2.3 Trait theory:

In Alicon, except these two theories, according to me Trait theory work better in an Alicon. The trait model of leadership is based on the characteristics of many leaders, and therefore it is used to predict leadership effectiveness. The most important thing is that it is not responsible to identify whether a person will be a successful leader or not, but they are essentially seen as preconditions that endow people with leadership potential. It can be applied by people at all types of organization. Also managers can know their strengths and weaknesses and thus they get an understanding of how they can develop their leadership qualities.

The major advantage is that, company know that which talents leaders have. Even if there are certain inborn qualities that make one a good leader, these natural talents need encouragement and development. Because in this leadership self-confidence is developed, honesty and integrity are a matter of personal choice, motivation to lead comes from within the individual, and the knowledge of business can be acquired. In trait theory, people inherit certain qualities and traits that make them better suited to leadership. Trait theories often identify particular personality or behavioural characteristics shared by leaders. As in Alicon is dealing with so many sectors like auto, sports and power systems, so it’s necessary to have different skills for different sector.

2.4 CONCLUSION:

In general there are lots of theory and all the theories have some effect in and other way on the organisation. Ledaership strategy is very useful in an organisation for both the leaders and followers to communicate with each other. And also it motivate them to reach the goal of an organisation with the use of this theory. And it works towards the satisfaction from the management and leaders.

2.5 Bibliography:

1 http://www.alicongroup.co.in/products.php

2 http://www.strategies-for-managing-change.com/transformational-leadership-theory.html

3 MULLINS,Laurie (1985) Management and organisational behaviour(Eight edition)

4 http://psychology.about.com/od/theoriesofpersonality/a/trait-theory.htm

TASK 3 PLANNING FOR LEADERSHIP

3.1 Introduction:

This case will identify the requirements that needed in successful planning for leadership. Also it emphasis plan for development of future situations requiring leadership in this competitive world. Today’s world is changing drastically in technology and it affects in the development of leadership skills. A critical skill for leaders is the ability to manage their own learning that the highly motivated, self-directed and satisfied ways to the development of leadership skills. The leaders must be well-planned and they have a strategies to deal with the problems and to overcome with their skills.

3.2 Leadership Requirements:

In this modern world, leaders need to have an innate ability to have the courage to make decisions that can take their organisation well ahead of the competition. Leaders need to involved their organisation well ahead of the competition. Leaders need to be co-operative with their staff and gain support and respect of their staff so that they will follow their lead. Talented leaders address the critical issues that are having the biggest impact on positively to their job responsibilities. Successful leaders do not just recommend change and develop new processes, they become the champions of change. Dynamic leaders take a look at what changes need to occur and implement those changes to happen.

3.2.1 E-LAEDERSHIP:

E-leadership is similar form of effective leadership. It requires highly participative nature of the e-world between e-organisations and e-customers and the interconnectedness between leader and follower. Being a leader in this modern world, e-leadership takes a closer to each and every activities around the world. In future leader can easily take their organisation towards the success if they have this type of qualities. Change is one of the factor that affect to the development of leadership skills. At the basis of the change is the need for the management to recognise that organisations are in fact social systems and that the emergent technology property of the system, the e-world, needs to be well integrated in whole organisational system itself. Because of e-leadership world becomes closer to the activities and also it is possible to communicate to different countries for the leader and they can easily deal with the activities related to their business. So e-leadership concept has given more importance in this fast growing world.

3.2.2 Globalisation:

Globalization is one of the most important factor in today’s world. Because it affects to each and every place also it is the system of interaction among the countries of the world in order to develop the global economy. Globalisation includes technological, economic, political and cultural exchanges made possible largely by advances in communication, transportation, and infrastructure. Being an leader, they have to think about the expansion of their business at globally. Also they need to think about how they can expand to their business around the world. Because of globalisation , the number of countries where products can be sold or purchased has increased dramatically and it leads to improvement of international trade. The leaders need to compete globally, governments have upgraded their level of technology. Large companies refer to the countries is called a multinational so there has a increasing influence of multinational companies. Another effect of globalisation is the strengthening power and influence of international institution such as World Trade Organisation (WTO), International Monetary Fund (IMF), and World bank(WB).Globalization allows countries to source their manpower in countries with cheap labour. The manpower shortages in Taiwan, south Korea, and Malaysia provide opportunities for labour exporting countries such as the Philippines to bring their human resources to those countries for employment. Also leaders outsource their business processes to other countries so at the end they can achieve their goal.

3.3.3 DIVERSE TEAMS:

Each organisation has its own distinctive culture. It is a combination of the founders, past leadership, crises, events, history, and size. These impact individual behaviour on what it takes to be in good standing and directs the appropriate behaviour for each circumstance. Being a leader, they need to know the climate that’s the feel of the organisation , the individual and shared perceptions and attitudes of the organisation’s members. Culture is the nature of the organisation that is a result of long-held formal and informal systems, rules , and customs, while the climate is a short -term phenomenon created by the current leadership. Climate represents the beliefs about the feel of the organisation by its members. The leaders must know that what the people believe about the activities that occur in the organisation. These activities influence both individual and team motivation. Organisational climate is directly related to the leadership and management style of the leader, based on the values, attributes, skills, and actions as well as the priorities of the leader. Culture represents the shared expectations and self-image of the organisation. Individual leaders Cannot create or change culture because culture is the part of the organisation. Culture influences the characteristics of the climate by its effect on actions and thought processes of the leader.

3.3 EFFECTS OF LEADERSHIP SKILLS:

The leader must need an effective leadership skills so they can easily communicate with their followers. In this competitive world, it is required to have an efficient qualities in the leader that it help them to do more work and carry a smooth relation with their followers. Because of these leadership skills, leader can take maximum outcome with using minimum resources in an organisation.

3.4 DEVELOPMENT OF LEADERSHIP SKILLS:

There are different methods of developing leadership skills with formal and informal learning style. Leaders are the backbone of an organisation. Because of this leadership skills that they have , they can held seminars, training, self- help projects the leaders can know the picture of their organisation in the future. And according to that they can brief out their staff deeply that how work can be done in a more effective way.

3.4.1 JOB ROTATION:

Job rotation means employees are moved between two or more jobs in a planned manner. Job rotation is important in developing leadership skills because it includes the aspects related to work environment also along with other individual attributes . It helps to make satisfaction derived from balanced distribution of work load, working conditions and learning opportunities. A well planned job rotation in an organisation has immense positive impact on job satisfaction. Being a leader, job rotation helps employees to get different experiences and wider variety of skills to enhance job satisfaction. Also it helps to improve poor performance and settling scores from arising organisation politics.

3.4.2 SEMINARS:

Seminar means formal presentation by one or more experts in which the attendees are encouraged to discuss the subject matter. Seminars are intergral to most programs so because of this the leaders can know the issues which are raised and they can develop their skills by giving better ideas. The success of the seminar is dependent on the groups ability to work together through intelligent discussion, develop an understanding of the material that the leaders had already think before.

3.4.3 TRAINING:

For the leader to develop the skills training helps them that at which level they are standing not matter that how good or bad the leader is but then they will further improve their skills. It involves the acquisition of knowledge, rules or changing attitudes and behaviours through professional development. It helps to adhering a plan for the organisation. Through training leader can improve their quality of work and work life. Also it develop the morale of work force in leader.

3.5 CONCLUSION:

To conclude this, leaders required a skills to the betterment of an organisation through different method of developing leadership skills. Comparing to old times there has a competition in the world so leaders must acknowledge certain skills that really useful in an organisation towards the success.