The Organization Goals and Objectives and Industry Standards for the Company - Essay Example

Introduction Managers and leaders have vital roles within an organization that bring about its success. The two groups have unique responsibilities and are considered to be the backbone of any organization. They are responsible for creating and maintaining a healthy environment within an organization. Managers provide an organization with some sense of direction since they define the mission and vision to be focused on by the organization. Leaders provide the company with the technical maintenance that will keep it in business and increase in profitability. Managers look specifically at the individual's performance at any one time while leaders look at a team and their future prospects (Maundy, 2001) Managers within an organization do the planning for most of the sectors such as policy formulation, financial, marketing of products, and control of major assets. They also exercise their power on any issue arising such as the decision making processes. The leaders in an organization are responsible for building the large workforce and human resources within the company. These leaders also inspire, innovate, mentor, set examples, and revolutionize all the employees within the organization in order to achieve the best from them and also achieve the organization goals and objectives. (Maundy, 2001) Lastly, they build industry standards for the company products, set systems running and document procedures that guide other employees within the company. Explanation of responsibilities of management Management is universal and cuts across all organizations; an engineering firm is no exception. There are five managerial functions that will receive a lot of emphasis in the subsequent discussion. The first function is planning-it can be defined as the process of developing the objectives and mission of the organization. A manager must also organize-this involves coordinating and dividing tasks among members of the organization. Here, the manager assigns responsibilities to team members. Staffing is another managerial function and can be defined as the filling and maintaining of all the positions available in a company. Some of the activities involved in this function include: recruiting, training, hiring, evaluation and compensation. Managers are also expected to control members of staff. This involves measuring performances, setting performance standards and taking corrective or preventive measures to ensure that the standards set are adhered to. Communication is another vital element in management and involves the transfer of information from management down to other members of the organizational structure. Lastly, managers are expected to motivate their team members, this involves influencing or channelling people's behaviour to accomplish the missions and objectives of the organization. (Mullin, 2007) Importance of team approach in achieving organisation's goals The model below is a pictorial representation of John Adair's action centred leadership. He believed that a manger has three roles; 1) he must plan, assign, review tasks of the organisation 2) he must communicate, create a culture of ethics, hive feedback to the team 3) he must understand individuals, develop, train and recognise each individual's efforts An organisation can be viewed as a combination of two sets of workers i.e. management and subordinates. Both categories have their own goals that have to be directed towards overall goals of the organisation. It is important for management to try and align employee goals with organisational goals. This means that everyone in the organisation will be working towards the same direction. This can be achieved by creating a sense of loyalty among employees and through communication. This implies that workers will work hand in hand with management thus achieving overall goals. In contrast, if every member of the organisation focuses on their own needs and did not consider their work group as a team, resources will be drained and losses will occur. Case study Taking an example of a hospital like the Yale New Haven Hospital. There is a culture of team work in the hospital. Teams have been known to improve the performance of an organization and at the same time nurture the leadership skills of team leaders and members as a whole. However, times can only work well if all team members are satisfied with the arrangement of the team. Maud (2001) notes that, effective management structure and culture of an organization affects teams' performance. At the hospital, the hospital has created several teams in various departments which have a task of achieving their given assignments. For example, there are research teams, emergency teams and even nursing care teams. All these teams give the nurses and other staff opportunity to practice their leadership skills. Teams have a high level of independence. Mound (2001) further explains that, A leader of a team is anticipated to stand apart from the team in relation to his/her position and assist his/her team in explanation of issues, advocate for a team members where justices seems not to be done. A team leader is supposed to clearly understand issues and find their solution. (Mound, 2001) Organization culture and relationship with management and leadership Organizational culture is a model of shared fundamental assumption which an organization has learnt in the process of solving its internal integration. This must have worked adequately well to be made valid in order to be used to teach other new members of the organization. (Schein 1992) organizational culture according to this theory has three main aspects; Artefacts; evident organizational structures and procedures Espoused values; these are goals objective and strategies of the organization Underlying assumptions; unconscious, assumed, thoughts beliefs perceptions and feelings (the eventual source of values and acts) Schein (1992) also points out that we have a deeper essential assumption that influences how employees feel and perceive the organization. Denison (1990) states that; culture of an organization is dynamic. Leadership structure of an organization has a major position in defining organizational culture. Managers and founders of the organization play a significant role as creators of culture of an organization. Organizational climate According to Denison, D. (1990): organizational climate can be defined as feelings and perceptions employees have concerning the work environment of their organization. There are various aspects which decide the perception of the employees; these aspects include how the organization treats its workforce, or how management perceives professional ethics or the social relationship in organization. The organization climate created can help the organization achieve its goals and objectives or hinder it. Recent research reveals that management structure of an organization plays a significant function in defining the organizational climate in an organization. (Denison, 1990) From the above discussion it is clear that organizational climate has a big role in ensuring that an organization does attain its goals and objectives. Conclusion There are a number of management theories that have been put in place ever since the eighteenth century. One such theory is the theory of scientific management. This had its origin in the 1860s. It was started by Taylor who believed that management could take a scientific approach. He realised that most workers in industries engaged in repetitive and monotonous work. Because their pay was the same regardless of effort put into work, most of the workers did not perform to their maximum potential. He therefore suggested that wage incentives should be provided in equal proportion to work done. He also believed in division of labour where the only a person skilled for a specific job should perform it. However, critics have claimed that this system of management does not consider the human nature of machines but instead looks at them as machines. Another theory of management theory of constraints: This theory focuses on goal achievement through two steps. The first is the thinking process that involves identifying resistance in achievement of goals, coming up with plans to overcome resistances and implementing the plan of action. The other aspect of this theory are the five focusing steps that include the following determining hindrances, planning how to address the hindrance, aligning subordinates to these processes, then returning to the first step after eliminating the hindrance. Critics have claimed that this theory can result to massive layoffs since it focuses on the negative. Lastly, there is the theory of management by objectives. This theory was popularised in the 1950s. It focuses on an alignment of objectives between management and the employees of an organisation. This theory puts forward the fact that objectives must be clearly defined. It introduced the idea of specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time specific. However, this theory has been criticised because it diverts attention away from actual work and makes them focus on objectives. This implies that some employees may use unethical ways to achieve targets because that is all that counts. In my opinion, a good management approach is one that applies elements of all the above theories in its organisation. That is, applying the right person for a job, relating pay with performance, specifying clear goals to subordinates, adopting a team approach and eliminating obstacles in achievement of goals. All these elements are the best recipe for efficient management and hence success for the organisation. References Mullin, J. (2007): Management and organisational Behaviour; Financial Times Press Denison, D. (1990): Corporate Culture and Organizational Effectiveness. New York: Schein, E.H. (1992): Organizational Culture and Leadership (2nd edition.). San Francisco; Wiley & Sons Maundy, L. (2001): An Introduction to Human Resource Management: Theory and Practice: Palgrave, Macmillan, Yale-New Haven Hospital (YNHH), (2007) about the hospital: Retrieved from http://www.ynhh.org. Accessed on 07/12/07 Read More