Managing Diverse Teams - Essay Example

Theme Managing Diverse Teams Diversity can be defined as people with different social es, ethnic backgrounds, gender, nationalities, marital status, age, economic class, nationalities, sexual orientation, disability, physical conditions and education and so on. Diversity in a work place means that the presence of employees from a wide range of perspectives and backgrounds, who work together with each other in a single company and under a single set of rules and regulations, and making the company such an ideal place where people from diverse background can feel confident and motivated to contribute their full potential towards the achievement of the company’s goal. (Kirton and Greene) Diversity at work place has certain positive and negative impacts over the overall organizational culture and performance of the company. Here in this paper, we will discuss the impacts of diversity over the rapidly developing mobile phone industry and how the companies manage their diverse workforce through different models and theories. A diverse workforce brings a number of positive results to the workforce of a company because employees from the diverse background can share different expertise and experiences with each other, which provides them an increased richness of decision making and a more balanced and clear view of the problems. (Kirton and Greene) It acts as an effective tool in the process of recruitment and designs the overall corporate culture of the industry. During the past few decades the increasing trend of globalization and development in technology most of the companies have started their operations in different regions of the world. Just like other industries the mobile phone industry is also rapidly developing and most of the companies like Apple, Inc., NOKIA, Corp., HTC, etc.… has also felt the need for diversifying their workforce to cope with the increasing demands of globalization. They have followed a number of team management models and theories to effectively manage their diverse workforce. Many players in the Mobile phone industry have used the team compilation model for managing their workforce. According to this model, companies have divided their workforce into a number of interdependent teams and the members of these teams are also interdependent upon each other, for example, the manufacturing department is divided into teams responsible for processing, assembling and finishing the production of mobile phone devices. (Jamieson) In this type of model no team member is capable to perform his task until the other team member has completed his part of the work. This model has increased the coordination among the team members and provided them a productive environment for pooling their ideas. The CEO of Apple, Inc. Steve Jobs was deeply concerned about diversifying his workforce by inviting qualified and eligible candidates from the minorities and underrepresented groups of the society. He felt that need after facing a high criticism from two major shareholders of the company. The shareholders have criticized the company for having only a single woman on the eight member board of directors and also said that the company has been focusing upon the white executives only since its incorporation. In order to respond to this criticism the executives of the company have adopted the Woodman and Pasmore’s Model for the purpose of team management and performance appraisal. According to this model the company has focused upon hiring more executives from the black and the underrepresented communities of the country and focuses upon the empowerment of the group functionality and decision making. This model has provided the workforce a platform to identify and explore their particular needs and managed them by effectively managing the available resources. (Agocs and Burr) This will help the company in developing good managerial skills and also contributes towards the accomplishment of the company’s corporate social responsibility by addressing the underrepresented community of the country. Managers should be competent enough to deal with a diverse workforce because due to increasing globalization most of the companies have to hire individuals from diverse backgrounds to fill their human resource needs. By using the knowledge of diversity managers can be able to provide a healthy and productive environment for their workforce and increase coordination among them to enhance their individual skills and also achieve the overall organizational goals effectively. (Beham, Straub and Schwalbach) The knowledge of diversity will make them able to overcome the potential challenges related to managing diversity in a workplace, i.e. resistance from employees, strategic planning and decision making, etc.… From the above discussion it has been concluded that diversity in a workplace is very important in today’s globalized world because people from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds are living and working in common places. It is also necessary to pool the expertise of different individuals in the form of teamwork, which can benefit the organization in a more productive manner. Leadership & Management Styles and Approaches The role of a leader is very important in the present competitive business environment because people in all sorts of organizations and at all the sectors are needed to be inspired. In order to begin a discussion about leadership and management, we must first understand that the two concepts are linked but are widely different from each other. Leadership involves inspiring and influencing other towards the accomplishment of the organizational goal through a number of leadership traits, whereas managers are required to follow the strict rules and regulations of the company’s policy and make their decisions within the prescribed jurisdiction of the authority. (Kippenberger) Leadership is actually one of those assets that managers posses, which means that an effective leading requires the managers to guide and motivate their subordinates and manage them through the appropriate exercise of power. The following table shows a brief comparison between the management and leadership. Management Leadership Management is responsible to produce orders and make them consistent with the performance of the subordinates. They are responsible to monitor the performance of the company and make future predictions. Their key function is to make sure the implementation of the organization’s vision and make sure that the subordinates are consistent with the mission statement of the company. Managers are required to manage the team members and try to follow the vision of the leader to accomplish the goal that has been assigned to him. Leadership produces change and flexibility to new elements of the organization; leadership obliges inspiring participation and cooperation of individuals and keeping the key individuals in the network motivated by utilizing each way of influence; leadership is supposed to produce change, for example, by leading the dispatch of an approach on a trial premise, new items, redesign of an old project. Leadership provides a clear vision to the subordinates and briefs them about their course of action in order to achieve the desire goals. With the help of the above discussion, I think the best approach towards managing the subordinates is the leadership approach because it can inspire the subordinates to exert their highest level of efforts towards the achievement of the organization’s goal. Management only is not a preferable style because only directing or communicating orders towards the subordinates do not motivate them to give their potential input towards the organization’s objectives. There are a number of leadership styles that can be adopted by different organizations to motivate and guide their subordinates, i.e. autocratic, democratic, participative, charismatic, laissez-faire styles of leadership. Managers may adopt these styles of leaderships according to their individual personality and the structure of the organization. However, in my point of view and the evaluation of most of the research, the participative style of leadership is very effective style to guide and inspire the subordinates. (Boje, Burnes and Hassard) The point of view that has been suggested by the CMI, 2013, gives very realistic and practical perception towards the modern business settings and the needs of the organizational development. Yes, I agree with the point of view of the CMI, because due to the increasing education and awareness among the people regarding their fundamental rights and duties, the general consensus has moved away from the command and control towards the leadership and management. (Coleman) This means that people now prefer to work in a participative environment as compared to the one where they seek exclusive direction and powers to be controlled by their executives. The consultative and participative approaches of leadership help the leaders to inspire their subordinates and integrate the unique culture of shared values among them through working with them as a group member. It also encourages the subordinate to take innovative decisions regarding shaping their individual personalities. I have been inspired by Howard Schultz and Steve Jobs the CEO and head of the Starbucks and Apple, Inc. respectively. These two leaders are very hard working and have changed the overall structure of their organizations through their leadership traits and charismatic skills. (Brundrett and Rhodes) Their leadership has inspired me because both of these organizations have a number of operational units in different regions of the world, but they have managed all these diverse settings in a very effective manner and led their organizations to the highest of success. Once, during the time of recession, Apple, Inc. had faced a downturn in their revenues and most of the financial analysts predicted that the company was on the edge of its liquidation, but at that time Steve Jobs came forward and took the leadership of the company. He had not only brought out the company from these worst conditions, but also made his company a symbol of success. Theme-3 Leadership & Change Change is a natural phenomenon, which means that no person can remain static or in the same position over a long period of time. It is in the nature of human beings that they must undergo a process of change after a period of time to make their lives progressive or to achieve any other sort of objective, which cannot be achieved with their existing position or settings of life. Research has evolved that a number of organizations have changed their operational and organizational structure with a purpose to improve their performance and attain market leadership. (Ciulla, Uhl-Bien and Werhane) However, it has been observed that during the process of change, the company faces a number of challenges, ranging from the financial and economical aspects of the personal problems of the employees. Most of the employees perceive change as a problematic issue for them and their families. They are afraid of coping with the new and changed conditions of their jobs and lost their confidence to deal with the new environment. The degree of resistance and skepticism to the process of change from the employees of an organization make it difficult for the management to effectively implement the change in the organization. (Stanley, Meyer and Topolnytsky) Whereas, on the other side some employees consider a change as a positive aspect for their career growth and individual development, therefore, it is the responsibility of the managers and leaders of the organization to reduce the possible resistance from the group of employees who are against the process of change. In order to reduce the resistance to change, an effective leader will involve or invite those employees who are showing resistance to the process of change in the change process and decision making regarding the prospective change. (Stanley, Meyer and Topolnytsky) This will make them confident and will also provide them an opportunity to express their reservations during the decision making phase of the change, which will eliminate the chances of resistance from them in the future implementation of the change because they would now themselves be the part of that process. Another way to minimize the resistance to change is that the leaders should arrange counseling sessions and workshops for those employees who show a resistance to the process of change, so that they can educate them about the positive aspects of the change towards their individual objectives and the overall organizational development. This will help the management in understanding the potential reasons behind their resistance and make them capable to deal with resolving their problems and negative expectations from the change. Managers can also minimize the resistance from employees by exercising coercion and force over them, i.e. through job degrading, strict punishments in terms of pay cuts or out of region transfers, etc.… (Rosen) However, from the psychological aspect this approach should not be exercised because it can evoke negative emotions from the employees against the management. The managers of the company should adopt the Kotter’s 8 step change model because it is the most effective and easy manner to manage the overall change process from the start to end. The model will get started with the creation of urgency to change and then convince the people for the need of change. Once people are convinced then managers should create a vision for the change and communicate the change to the rest of the organization to check the expected resistance towards the process of change. After analyzing the obstacles in the process of change the managers should remove these obstacles and create certain short-wins to ensure continuity of the change. At last the managers should incorporate the change in the company’s organizational structure and core values for the future long term sustainability of the change. In the recent years, most of the mobile phone manufacturing companies have shifted their manufacturing facilities from USA, UK, France, etc… towards the developing countries of the world, where the labor and material cost is very low. It requires the companies to integrate an extensive organizational change in their existing settings because there in these countries they have to hire local labors and a diverse workforce. Recently, the CEO of Apple, Inc. has made an announcement about the hiring of the black executives and sending their management from the USA settings to the China manufacturing facilities. Most of the white employees and executives have initially resisted this announcement because they feel that they will be degraded in such a manner. However, this change was effectively carried out by the astonishing leadership traits of the Steve Jobs through participation and a predefined crisis management plan. (Kavanagh and Ashkanasy) From the above analysis, it has been concluded that managers should manage change through a predefined plan with a three phase process. They should first unfreeze the status quo of the employees and then communicate the benefits of change over their individual and organizational development. Once the employees adopt a change, then management should refreeze the change to make it permanent. Theme-4 Leadership and Ethics Research shows that a good business is the one that has high ethical values and norms and a strong ethical culture can only be implemented in the business of a company through a high ethical leadership. The incorporation of an ethical culture can improve the organizations decision making power and its day to day operations. There are three distinct approaches that can be used by companies to implement or introduce ethical values into their workforce. The first one is the legal compliance with the standard moral and ethical values of an industry, i.e. people working in hospital should follow certain strict ethical rules and regulations while dealing with patients. The second approach to implement ethical values is that different organizations may use certain internal controls to ensure ethical values to increase their reputation in the market. (Connock and Johns) Whereas, the third approach involves a value based philosophy of integrating ethical values into an organizations culture, which helps the management to incorporate the first two concepts to create ethical values through a committed leadership. Ethical leaders can create a culture of shared values where employees from diverse background come together and discuss their distinct ethical values with each other. This will help them to shape their group culture and make them capable of responding to the changing needs and demands of the customers. This will improve the relation of organization with their customers, investors, suppliers and the overall society at large. Ethical leaders can easily inspire their subordinates because of their high level of credibility and truthfulness. An ethical leader will create such types of programs in the organization that will improve the integrity and culture of honesty in the business. They should form certain strict rules and regulations regarding the ethical values and define a standard ethical approach towards different aspects of the organization. (Connock and Johns) The mobile phone industry is highly exposed to the ethical regulations of the country because of the nature of the services provided by them. They have a direct access to the customer’s data and personal information, therefore high rules and regulations has been imposed on it by the regulatory authorities of different countries. The leaders and managers of the mobile phone industry should be ethical and honest enough to increase the integrity of their organization so that can trust them. The leaders should ensure that before making any sort of announcement regarding new promotions and extension of services to certain new regions they should critically observe all the matters and arrangements. (Gini) Recently, such an incident occurred with the customers’ of AT&T, where an undisclosed number of the company’s customers have signed an agreement to upgrade their smartphones for the next two years, which had charged them a considerable amount of price against a data plan that was provided to them. But after a few days the company had stopped its services to the upgraded users by saying that a tower failure is occurred and they will require to take a considerable period of time to fix it or transfer the data service to another frequency band. This had badly affected the reputation of the company and most of the customers are claiming the refund of their money by saying that the company had committed fraud with them. (McLaren et al.) Most of the customers blamed the leadership of the company and said that if the leaders of the company were honest and ethical then such an unethical thing would never be happened to the customers. From the above discussion it has been concluded that the ethical leaders are considered as strong assets of the company. They are responsible to integrate the ethical culture and values into the organizational setup of a company and make key decisions regarding the extent of ethical practices that are supposed to be followed by the employees of the company into their day to day operations. Ethical leaders are also responsible for giving a right direction to the organization and enhancing its market credibility and reputation due to their own image in the industry. (Trevi\~no, Brown and Hartman) Ethical leaders are the key representatives of an organization, who represents the organization in front of the external stakeholders and the regulatory authorities, i.e. customers, investors, suppliers, government regulators and competitors. If an organization has an ethical leadership, then people will show more trust upon such an organization as compared to the one having unethical and dishonest leadership. Theme-5 Your Vision for Leadership My vision of leadership is that a person who possesses the qualities of managing and directing individuals towards a particular course of action and provides them a credible future forecast, which is based upon his personal skills and experiences. A leader must be a person who possesses the following five qualities. (Westley and Mintzberg) The first and most important quality of a person that makes him a leader is his integrity. It gives a leader the motivation to always do the right things at right times. It enables the person to exhibit such qualities that will inspire the other person to follow these attributes. A leader must be loyal to his position and community or to the interest of subordinates. He should always prefer the interest of the organization and his workforce over his own interest and make himself available to help the subordinates in their professional and personal matters as well. (Peters and Austin) An effective leader should be capable of reading in between the lines, which means that he should be capable of taking an understanding of the truth and the real facts about a problem or matter under consideration and try to find out an appropriate solution to solve that particular problem. (Westley and Mintzberg) He should work as a teacher to his subordinates and help them to understand their respective objectives and duties. He should always take care about the interest of the subordinates instead of his own development and interest. He should be committed to his job and should exert an utmost effort towards the achievement of the organizational goal. He should be ethical and work in a fiduciary relation to the organization because he is the one who represents the organization in front of the external stakeholders. (Mitonga-Monga, Coetzee and Cilliers) As I have discussed earlier in this paper that I have been inspired by the CEO of Starbucks Mr. Howard Schultz and the CEO of Apple, Inc. Mr. Steve Jobs. These two leaders have certain charismatic skills because they can very easily influence their subordinates during any sort of situation. Both the leaders exercise the democratic style of leadership, which means that both of them take suggestions from their subordinates on different important issues of the organizations, while keeping the final say in their hand. (Westley and Mintzberg) Through this style of leadership and their personal skills and qualities they had rescued their respective companies from the edge of their liquidation and make them a symbol of success in the present world. The person’s abilities and strengths can be best judged by his colleagues and friends because they can closely and critically observe them and make their judgment about different traits and qualities of the individual. My colleagues have told me about my strengths and pointed out a number of leadership qualities from my attitude towards them. They told me that I am very participative and friendly in nature and always helps others in resolving their problems through sharing different information and productive ideas with them. (Williams, Pederson and Marsala) I have been noticed by them in different stressed full situations where I have made a number of productive decisions without taking the impact of stress and the surrounding. They have also noticed certain charisma in my nature because whenever I talked to someone, I can easily convince them on my point of view through logical arguments and illustrations. I have been taught a number of leadership theories and qualities during my studies in the MBA, which helped me in understanding the importance of each leadership trait and its implication in our regular day to day life. I have understood the impact of an ethical and qualified leader over the overall organizational affairs of the company and exercising the control over its subordinates. (Williams, Pederson and Marsala) I will prefer to develop the transformational style of leadership skills during my studies of MBA, because through this skill I can manage people from diverse background and transfer my knowledge and traits to them. This will help me in establishing a better understanding with my subordinates and developing a healthy workplace environment. Works cited Agocs, Carol, and Catherine Burr. Employment Equity, Affirmative Action And Managing Diversity: Assessing The Differences. International Journal of manpower 17.4/5 (1996): 30--45. Print. 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