Effective and Efficient Strategies of Managers - Essay Example

Managers hold the most important position in the overall performance and functions of the organisations. They are provided with different complex task and responsibilities. Managers are not only answerable for their own performance but they are also responsible for the performance and work of other employees (Wood, 1999). This results in increasing the overall responsibilities and accountabilities of the managers. It is the duty of the managers to come up with effective and efficient strategies for the growth and development of the organisation. Apart from formulation of different strategies and tactics, managers are also responsible for the successful implementation of these strategies. All these responsibilities and duties make it difficult for the managers to create a balance between the work and private life. It is important to establish here that, this balance between the work and private life work as a motivation for the managers (Reynolds, Taylor, & Shapiro, 1993). Apart from this, if managers are not able to keep a balance between the professional and private life then it results in excessive stress. In order to understand the importance of balance between work and private life, it is beneficial to explore the different motivational factors along with factors which cause stress and depression. Before exploring these specific factors and areas one should understand different roles and duties of an effective and well rounded manager. ROLES AND DUTIES OF WELL ROUNDED MANAGER: The role of managers in the modern world has reshaped with greater responsibilities. Manager is not only expected with the skills like good communication, interpersonal skills, planning and long term forecasting capabilities, good decision making and leadership skills but in fact now a manager is expected to be a motivator who is capable of motivating and satisfying his subordinates as well as he has to become a role model for his team to show them how to cope up with problems and how to reduce any sort of tensions and stress during work (Davis, Eschelman, & McKay, 1995). A manager is not only expected to make himself stress free but he should also understand the problems of his subordinates and make them easy and feel stress free as well. MOTIVATION AT WORK: First of all it is important to explore what is meant by the term motivation. Different theorists and business analyst have presented different definitions of motivation. Motivation is the willingness on part of any person to put extra efforts for doing a particular work (Jackson, 1983). Motivation is the reason behind different actions of people. In reference to organisations and managers, motivation is important in order to encourage the managers and employees to work hard enough in order to provide exceptional performance and end results (Sommerville, Allen, Noble, & Sedgwick, 1984). It is difficult to generalize the factors which are responsible for high motivation, as different people are motivated by different factors or elements (Greenberger, & Padeshy, 1995). The causes and level of motivation differs on the basis of the personality and needs of different individuals. Researchers have presented different intrinsic and extrinsic factors responsible for motivating and encouraging the managers in order to work harder (Lazarus, & Folkman, 1984). In this regard, most famous theory is that of Abraham Maslow known as hierarchy of needs. According to Maslow, human beings are derived by the hierarchy of five different needs which are: 1. Physiological needs: These needs consist of the most basic needs which are necessary for human survival. If these needs are not fulfilled then human body is incapable of doing any work. Such needs include Air, Water, Food, Shelter, Clothing, and protection from natural environment. 2. Safety needs: When all those physiological needs are fulfilled than a person demands for safety needs for further motivation. Safety needs means protection from physical threats, economic problems, job security etc. Without safety needs a person remains distracted from work due to continuous thoughts of any threats. 3. Social needs: After physiological and safety needs are fulfilled, the third layer of human needs is social needs. In these needs, a human being seeks for love and belonging from other people. Safety needs generate feelings of belonging like being a part of some large social group, religious group, professional organizations, sports team fanship, or other small and personal connections (Tajfel, 1981). 4. Self – Esteem needs: After Social needs the person asks for more complicated needs as he enters into more dominant position and controls more power. So next a person ask for his own respect and admiration for his work. Esteem presents the normal human desire to be accepted and valued by others. People need to engage themselves to gain recognition and have an activity or activities that give the person a sense of contribution, to feel self-valued, be it in a profession or hobby. Imbalances at this level can result in low self-esteem or an inferiority complex. People with low self-esteem need respect from others. 5. Self – Actualisation needs: The highest level of man’s need is the desire to become in the eyes of others what he thinks about himself. A person tries to become all what he can become. He tries to prove himself to others in all those areas which he thinks he is good at. But no one can understand this kind of need unless his all four previous needs are fulfilled in the same pecking order. This is the only condition when one starts having such kind of need. Using the Maslow Need theory a manager can easily find where an employee stands waiting for the fulfilment of his needs. In this way a manager can find the right tool for motivating the person. It not only saves the cost for motivating that employee but also provides quick and long term solutions as well. STRESS AT WORK: Yet people discuss a lot about stress but most of them do not know what stress really is. Most of them have an opinion that stress is something that happens to them, a kind of incident, situation, event such as an accident, injury or job loss etc (McDowell, & Newell, 1996). While other thinks that stress is something related to their body, a reaction that a body takes, or something happens to their mind or organs or behaviour in a response to some event. When something happens only then an individual actually starts evaluating the situation in his brain. And he distinguishes either it is threatening or not. If it is of threatening nature than he needs to deal with it and he has to decide what he would do to deal with it. But if he thinks that the situation will outclass the skills which he has then this situation is known as stress. Stress can come from any situation or thought that makes an individual feel frustrated, angry, or anxious. Work related stress is a series of reactions which occurs when an employee is given with high work demands that are according to the knowledge, skills or abilities of the employee; and which can challenge his skills to deal with the work. These demands can be of any type. Sometimes it is related to time pressure, amount of work, difficulty of task, or it can be due to the emotional demands or empathy requirements. Demands may also be physical for instance, in the area of dynamic or static load. So whenever an employee finds the imbalances in the demand and his personal resources he gives a particular pattern of reactions. These pattern of reactions can be physiological responses like increase in heart beat, or blood pressure; emotional responses like feeling nervous, irritated, unsatisfied; cognitive responses like lack of attention in work, lack of memorizing; behavioral reactions like becoming aggressive on small things, committing continuous mistakes etc. It is the duty of a manager to understand its employees and safe them from any kind of stress at work. For this a proper understanding of employees skills is necessary. So he is offered the work which he or she is capable of doing with the skills they already possess, thus without taking any stress. IMPORTANCE OF LEVEL OF MOTIVATION AND STRESS TO MANAGERS IN THE ORGANISATIONS IN RELATION TO THE WORK AND PRIVATE LIFE: Motivation and stress management play an important role in the overall productivity of the organization. By motivating people, a manager can make them more efficient in doing their work, thus, making the whole organization efficient. A motivated worker makes the other workers motivated as well by his ideas about the work and organization. A motivated workforce also helps in building a friendly working environment. A friendly working environment helps in the integration of information through different expertise of people and maintains a smooth working environment where everybody considers them as a part of the team and helping each other. While on the other hand, stress management allows a manager to remove any threat to decrease in the efficiency of work because of stress in work place. An employee will be vulnerable to any challenge if he is working under certain stress. So, avoiding such situations and having proper counselling with the employees cannot only help a manager to make a worker work in a stress free environment but can also motivate him to take more challenges and helps in improving his productivity level (Barkham, & Shapiro, 1990). Stress management also helps in reducing the conflicts in the workplace and allows a manager to maintain a peaceful working environment (Murphy, 1996). Further by reducing conflicts it subsequently improves the communication process within the whole organization. CONCLUSION: Hence, it is seen that motivation and stress management play an important role in the modern management and in the productivity of the employees and organization. It not only becomes a necessary skill for a manager but also demands a manager to make sure that he is capable of motivating his employees as well as managing stress as well. This makes the organization a lot efficient and makes the work processes smooth. These two are not only the demand for the modern organizations but now it actually has become the necessity due to complex work processes and changing customer expectations and demands. So organizations require a manager not only to plan, organize, monitor and control the work but also to motivate and manage the stress of his team as well. Thus, motivating employees and stress management have become two essential skills for the managers in the modern world. References: Davis, M., Eschelman, E, & McKay, M 1995, The Relaxation & Stress Reduction Workbook. New Harbinger Publications: Oakland. Greenberger, D., & Padeshy, C 1995 Mind Over Mood. Change How You Feel by Changing the Way You Think. Guilford Publications: New York. 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