Leadership and Management in an Organisation - Essay Example

?A Case Study Analysis of Leadership and Management in an Organisation of Choice Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Introduction 3 Leadership and Management Approach in British Red Cross 4 Competencies of the Approach 8 Limitations of the Approach 11 Conclusion 13 References 15 Introduction People follow leaders who lead with example. Leadership and management are two different styles of behaviour possessed by any human being. Leadership means to bring change in the organisation and management refers to adapt the measures that will bring the effective change in the organisation. Thus, management and leadership are two unique aspects that are applied alongside each other. Both are equally important for the organisational growth and to achieve the desired objectives. Therefore, organisations tend to hire the best leaders in the industry who are unique for their approaches towards leadership and management (Bennett, 2002). Based on this notion, the paper will intend to provide a detailed description of the leadership and management approaches considered in British Red Cross. Notably, British Red Cross is a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) which was instigated in the year 1863 by Henry Dunant who was a Swiss businessman. He was affected by the sight that people were left to die after the Solferino war in 1859, where no one took the initiative to take care of them. Thus, he proposed the creation of national relief societies which will consist of volunteers who will be responsible for providing impartial help to people suffering from any kind of disaster (British Red Cross, 2012). The leaders of NGO have to face various challenges in every field of life. They work at uncertain places with very minimum resources. Quality leaders are a constraint at NGOs because it is a non-profit segment. Thus, a need of urgency has developed to find in quality leaders among the younger generation who will be able to support the existing leaders (Hailey, 2006). The objective of the paper is to identify the roles of the leaders and the different approaches to management in the British Red Cross. Furthermore, the skills and competencies of the present leaders will also be analysed to identify the persisting limitations in the leadership and management approach applied, thus, recommending the necessary skills and competencies required for the improvement. Leadership and Management Approach in British Red Cross The British Red Cross is an organisation which helps people in crisis all around the world. They also help people to prepare in advance for any kind of emergencies and promises to be present for help if any mishaps occur. Hence, it can be observed that the organisation tends to focus on the overall social development as its sole organisational objective. With this concern, the organisation has identified that the presence of young generation and young leaders will be the future prospective for them. It has further taken measures to develop leadership skills which will be required for the smooth functioning of the organisation in times of crisis (British Red Cross, 2012). It has been recognised that leadership can be defined through four different aspects, namely, the person who is the leader, the result that the leader achieved, the position where the leaders operated and the processes that have been undertaken by the leaders to get the desired outcome (Grint, 2005). Thus, British Red Cross emphasised on working with a company named Unlimited Potential to develop and improve the leadership skills of the directors (Woods, 2009). The objective behind training the directors is to practice and refresh their coaching skills so that they can contribute enriched value to the organisation’s talent management programme. The chief executive of British Red Cross, Sir Nicholas Young, has travelled in various countries all around the world where the organisation is operating. He gets involved with the project works and studies the challenges that are being faced by the volunteers. He also intends to solve the issues by providing useful tips for tackling emergency situations (British Red Cross, 2012). British Red Cross wants to strengthen its volunteer network by leadership development fund raising and disaster management abilities. The organisation believes that volunteers are its life-blood. Without the help of the volunteers, the organisation would not have been able to render the services that they are best known for. Therefore, being a non profit organisation, it is a noteworthy issue faced by the management of British Red Cross to attract young talents by providing additional cash benefits or advantages compared to the profit earning organisations. Simultaneously, the organisation is focussing on ways to create funds through donations. For instance, the leaders of the organisation are focussing on the younger generation to develop their future leaders. They are further having concerns regarding the lack of leadership talents who are not very interested to join this sector because of the non-profit business and comparatively steady growth than the profit sectors. The organisation is facing huge challenges to grow its volunteer base all over the world in order to help people from any disasters (British Red Cross, 2012).Recently it has been observed that the leaders of the NGO sectors work in three different arenas namely, the urban areas from where they work and live, the global aid world and the rural villages where their complete family is yet living (Hailey, 2006). One of the common styles of leadership followed by the British Red Cross is the capacity to adapt to new roles for which the situations demand. Adding to their concerns, the financial strain due to lack of funds is often recognised to be a deep constraint for the organisation. It is in this context that if the leaders are not being able to complete a project within the scheduled time frame provided by the donor, the credibility and confidence of that leader is certainly to be questioned. In this regards, the leaders of the organisation developed various training programmes to tackle sudden incidents occurred in day to day life. For instance, an elderly woman suffered a seizure and was provided first aid help by a man called David Morton. He was volunteering his superior for a charity that picked helpless people from their homes when he came in front of this lady. Thus, he had done all the necessary things that were required for the woman to be comfortable because of the training he was provided from the British Red Cross at his local Mencap Job Club in County Down. Later, he called the ambulance and waited for the medical team to arrive before he left. Thus, David’s action show that if first aid training is accessed, then people from all sectors can render such life saving assistance when required, helping the cause of the organisation (British Red Cross, 2012). However, providing such trainings through internet or video transmissions require incurring cost which can be identified as a major constraint to the leaders and management to generate through donations. In its current performance, it has been further observed that British Red Cross is working hard to identify the community’s needs to overcome any barrier that obstructs its involvement for delivering services toward the overall betterment of the society. It is worth mentioning that the leaders have taken initiative to launch few projects that will widen the scope of staffs, volunteers and representations of young generation within the organisation. They have decided to hold events and meetings in community centres. Additionally, the management wishes to have the presence of people from different communities such as the black and minority people, people with disability and youths; thus, depicting an apparent image of a vibrant but coordinated working culture. The various presences of people such as people from different communities and culture will help the organisation to have diversity in the workplace which will allow it to have an access to almost all communities in the world (British Red Cross, 2012). The prime target of British Red Cross is to reach everyone who is in need. Thus, the organisation has set a target of having 12 per cent of the volunteers within the age group of 25 which will enhance its overall services. They carry out researches at excluded and under-represented groups to reach to people who are suffering and in need of medical aid. Furthermore, the organisation has been focussing more to the overseas crisis and hence lacking behind in terms of the health and social care activities in United Kingdom. Therefore, it has decided to develop training programmes which will be available for the common people to educate them the fundamental things that are needed to undertake in a sudden situation aroused in helpless families (British Red Cross, 2012). Furthermore, the organisation has set up a relief fund for UK victims who have suffered from terrorist attacks overseas. It has decided to provide a charitable grant amounting upto ?15,000 to help families overcome the financial difficulties that may have aroused in the initial stages. Notably, the grant is not compensation to the victims, but it is given for medical assistance. An initial payment of ?3,000, would be provided to the injured victims, and the rest ?12,000, to people for being admitted in the hospital for at least five days (Eyre, 2010). Thus, the relief funds that British Red Cross has decided require constant donations and funding to meet the crisis in UK and overseas. Therefore, they intend to develop campaigns in fundraising which will be effective and fruitful. Few of the strategies include campaigning door to door, in the street and on the telephone, have also been adopted by the organisation. The organisation believes that face to face fundraising is the most cost effective activity that was able to reward it over ?14 million in 2009. The leaders of the organisation believe that raising money through these kinds of campaign can help them to attract supporters from different backgrounds who do not have access to the facilities rendered by British Red Cross. The organisation further claims that these campaigns have helped to raise the percentage of participation of the young supporters in the organisation (British Red Cross, 2012). Competencies of the Approach The leadership skills that the management of the organisation possess have a few competencies. The leaders are believed to develop a vision and strategy for the organisation which determines the approach which the management needs to initiate in order to obtain the vision. Therefore, the leaders of British Red Cross are trained continuously by other external companies in order to keep them refreshed in terms of developing training programmes for their volunteers and service providers. Although, the operations that the organisation undertakes, is quite challenging to strategise plans and follow accordingly. Thus, the leaders have the competency to adapt to different roles according to situations. They intend to have volunteers placed everywhere so that people in need can be addressed immediately (British Red Cross, 2012). The leaders of British Red Cross are always trying to motivate the service providers and the volunteers of the organisation to render increasingly effective services. The top level management and leaders intend to visit most of the places the organisation has been operating from. They personally visit the places and interact with the volunteers for any issues that have been into their organisational concern. In addition, they instantly provide valued tips and suggestions to overcome the issues and work effectively to attain the objective of the projects they have been assigned to. Furthermore, the leaders provide significant consideration to the aspect that the tasks have been completed no matter what the difficulties are in order to improve their reputation that they can handle crisis situations effectively (British Red Cross, 2012).The leaders of British Red Cross possess exceptional networking and communication skills that are required for organisations in this sector. Hence, they should emotionally be attached with the people so that various projects concerned to the well being of the people can be undertaken effectively. A large source of network also needs to be build so that the volunteers’ base can increase and various funding sources can be developed. In addition, it has also been observed that the leaders of the organisation encourage women leaders and people from different backgrounds to establish diversity in their workforce. They believe that diversity of people will help them avoid discrimination when rendering services are concerned. Moreover, there are some issues which are women centric and only women can address to them more efficiently than the men volunteers. Furthermore, the encouragement of women leaders is directed to families where female children are discouraged by their parents in terms of education and services (British Red Cross, 2012). Hence, attracting women and people from different communities can be possible, provided the fact that the organisation can guarantee to be concerned about their safety in terms to working in remote areas. It is in this context that the organisation has to bear expenses for the additional security arrangements that will make the job of the leaders and the management more challenging due to the financial constraints experienced by them. It is worth mentioning that the ability to take part in different roles and develop strategies simultaneously is one of the key competencies possessed by the leaders of British Red Cross. The planning to resist natural disasters that tend to disrupt many livelihoods and to sustain to commit and help people in distressful conditions has made the role of the leaders more challenging in British Red Cross. The trust and confidence the leaders have upon their supporters and partners help them to get donors who can regularly donate useful contributions for responding to emergencies. The contributions could be in the form of finances or delivering services to the needful. At times, donations could amount huge being rendered either by the government or any other financial source. This huge amount of fund can intentionally or unintentionally be used for a different reason from the actual cause that the fund has been donated for by the partners of the organisation. Thus, it is very important for the leaders of the organisation to maintain the trust among its partners so that the donors believe that their donations are not misused (British Red Cross, 2012). Hence, the leaders and the management in British Red Cross should have a transparent workforce which will develop the trust among its donor partners so that the flow of funds does not get interrupted. British Red Cross’ one of the core values is to settle the lives of the victims who have been affected by disasters. This activity performed by the organisation is known as ‘resilience’. The leaders ensure that all the necessary requirements have been provided to the family to get their life settled. They also tend to ensure that financial aids and other essential things are being provided to the victims or their family. Additionally, the leaders require motivating the family who have lost their earning member to ensure that despite of their loss, they will be provided with financial aid for leading their lives apart from any opportunities to work and earn their living (British Red Cross, 2012). The resilience activity requires huge amount of fund to almost resettle the victims who have lost their households. Thus, lack of fund generation can be a significant issue faced by the leaders to continue performing such activities which they are well known for. Limitations of the Approach British Red Cross has been serving in different parts of the world with a motive to help and prepare people in any kind of disaster in any communities. Therefore, the services provided by the organisation require a certain amount of cost to be incurred. Thus, being a non-profit organisation, generating fund through donations is the only way for incurring these necessary costs. Furthermore, the coaching and mentoring programmes for the leaders is a costly process as it is done through an external company. Therefore, the most important challenge faced by the organisation is to generate funds. Additionally, the fund generation campaigns are not always successful. At times, the campaign’s expenses are more than the fund generated. The leaders of British Red Cross have the tendency to visit to most of the places where the projects have been undertaken. This process requires a lot of travelling from the top level management. Therefore, it can be assumed that the cost incurred in travelling is higher due to the quality of class used by the travellers (British Red Cross, 2012). It has been observed from the audited accounts that the fund raising expenditure amounted to ?40.3 million in the year 2010 (British Red Cross, 2012). Therefore, it indicates that effective initiatives are needed to be performed in order to raise funds. Furthermore, the leaders intend to organise various events from adventure to social events to raise funds. These organising of events require huge costs and involve numerous volunteers for smooth occurrence of the event. Even though, the voluntary services are for free, little costs are incurred with regards to the volunteers such as feeding them during the course of the event. Adventurous activities such as adrenaline, bike rides and many more are also undertaken by the British Red Cross leaders to keep the people of the society happier and make them overcome fear, to face disasters as well as to attain funds to sustain in the future. They claim that the adventurous activities are not only for the athletes, it is for everyone who has the determination to generate fun by performing these activities. Thus, it can be affirmed that the activities are intended to raise funds for the organisation, even though at times it fails to generate the expected amount (British Red Cross, 2012). Although, diversity in workforce is encouraged in the organisation, at times it can be also recognised as a limit to the services provided by the organisation. The leaders are assumed to work at different places, from rural to isolated places which often tend to barrier their accessibility to the needful and likewise serve them. In addition, resilience activities have cost the British Red Cross around ?36.3 million in the year 2010 (British Red Cross, 2012). Therefore, it indicates that one of the major expenses incurred by the organisation is settling livelihoods after any kind of disasters. Hence, it can be regarded as an ongoing and time consuming process which requires effective planning and execution. Involvement of large number of volunteer is essential for taking up the resilience process. The organisation’s prime target for resilience is to make the communities prepare for withstanding crisis by providing training in life saving skills and first aid. Therefore, the training programmes are made available to almost all the people of the communities which require recruiting a considerable number of volunteers. It is in this context that the young generation are preferred the most to suit the role of the volunteers. The leaders of the organisation believe that the young generation are easily approached for any kind of queries regarding the aspect of training. Thus, they are intending to develop ways that would attract young generation who can be the future leaders of the organisation. However, it has turned out to be a tough task for the organisation to fill in the deficit in leaders. The non-profit nature of the organisation is the reason for lack in the number of young volunteers towards this sector. In order to attract and retain young generation the organisation will need to make the roles of volunteer more challenging and make them feel happy by organising attractive events. Therefore, the events can be made attractive with incurring huge cost which might be a constraint for the organisation. Conclusion British Red Cross believes that every donation can help them to respond to emergencies. Thus, the leaders of the organisation emphasises more on grabbing any kind of opportunity that could raise fund for them. Furthermore, the organisation is trying to improve strategies that could be cost effective. These include spreading the presence of volunteers of the organisation in almost all parts of the world, which will ensure less travelling costs but more effective services. Alongside, the leaders are trying to build relationships with trusts or societies and companies so that their network base can increase. It is due to the reason that large network base helps the organisation to raise funds from different activities undertaken in its process (British Red Cross, 2012). However, the deficit of future leaders and young volunteers is emerging as a great concern for the existing leaders. Therefore, the organisation can be advised to be technologically advanced, to overcome the shortfall of volunteers. It has also been noted that the organisation is spending large amount for activities such as adventurous sports. Although it is a fun giving activity, the expenses incurred are large. The saved expenses could sum up to their fund and allow the organisation to use the fund in providing services regarding health issues. The expectations of the workforce should also be given priority in order to attract and retain people. Being a non-profit organisation British Red Cross can ensure job satisfaction through assigning challenging roles and projects which are generally undertaken by the youth generation as they have the tendency to take up challenges and prove their counterparts that any challenging role can be effectively handled by them, thus enhancing their leadership traits substantially. References Bennett, J., 2002. Multinational Corporations, Social Responsibility and Conflict. Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 55(2): pp. 393-410. British Red Cross, 2012. The Beginning of the Red Cross Movement. About Us. [Online] Available at: http://www.redcross.org.uk/About-us/Who-we-are/History-and-origin/Beginning-of-the-Movement [Accessed April 24 2012]. British Red Cross, 2012. Who We Are. About Us. [Online] Available at: http://www.redcross.org.uk/About-us/Who-we-are [Accessed April 24 2012]. British Red Cross, 2012. Sir Nicholas Young. Our chairman and chief executive. [Online] available at: http://www.redcross.org.uk/About-us/Who-we-are/Governance-and-annual-reports/Our-governance/Our-chairman-and-chief-executive [Accessed April 24 2012]. British Red Cross, 2012. Inclusive First Aid in Action. Case Studies. [Online] available at: http://www.redcross.org.uk/About-us/Who-we-are/Diversity/What-we-are-doing/Case-studies [Accessed April 24 2012]. British Red Cross, 2012. Our Diversity Projects. About Us. [Online] available at: http://www.redcross.org.uk/About-us/Who-we-are/Diversity/What-we-are-doing/Projects [Accessed April 24 2012]. British Red Cross, 2012. Our Fundraising Campaigns. Donate. [Online] available at: http://www.redcross.org.uk/Donate-Now/Our-fundraisers/Our-fundraising-campaigns [Accessed April 24 2012]. British Red Cross, 2012. Income and Expenditure. About Us. [Online] available at: http://www.redcross.org.uk/About-us/Who-we-are/Governance-and-annual-reports/Income-and-expenditure [Accessed April 24 2012]. British Red Cross, 2012. Challenges and Social Events. Get Involved. [Online] available at: http://www.redcross.org.uk/Get-involved/Events/Challenge-and-social-events [Accessed April 24 2012]. British Red Cross, 2012. Archive for the ‘Young volunteers’ Category. Red Cross Blog. [Online] available at: http://blogs.redcross.org.uk/volunteering/young-volunteers-volunteering/ [Accessed April 24 2012]. British Red Cross, 2012. International Women’s Day: Stories from Inspiring Women around the World. Red Cross Blog. [Online] available at: http://blogs.redcross.org.uk/health/2011/03/international-womens-day-stories-from-inspiring-women-around-the-world/ [Accessed April 24 2012]. British Red Cross, 2012. Our Accountability to All. About Us. [Online] available at: http://www.redcross.org.uk/About-us/Who-we-are/Governance-and-annual-reports/Accountability [Accessed April 24 2012]. Eyre, A., 2010. The British Red Cross Relief Fund for Victims of Terrorism Abroad. The Spirit of Giving: The Impact of Disaster and Donations. [Online] available at: http://www.disasteraction.org.uk/publications/Disaster_Funds_Lessons_and_Guidance_on_the_Management_and_Distribution_of_Disaster_Funds.pdf [Accessed April 24 2012]. Grint, K., 2005. Leadership: Limits and Possibilities. Palgrave MacMillan. Hailey, J., 2006. NGO Leadership Development. A Review of the Literature. [Online] available at: http://www.intrac.org/data/files/resources/248/Praxis-Paper-10-NGO-Leadership-Development.pdf [Accessed April 24 2012]. Woods, D., 2009. British Red Cross's Senior Managers Given Chance To Improve Their Coaching Skills. Learning and Development. [Online] available at: http://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/hro/news/1015439/british-red-crosss-senior-managers-chance-improve-coaching-skills [Accessed April 24 2012]. Read More