Employee Mentoring, Development, Performance, and Health Concerns - Literature review Example

Leading and Managing Teams Table of Contents Psychological Contracts…………………………………………………………………..2 Effective Communication……………………………………….…………………………3 Leadership………………………………………………………….…………………………3 Mentoring……………………………………………………………..………………………..4 Motivation……………………………………………………………..……………………….5 Professional Development…………………………………….…..………………………..6 Performance Assessment…………………………………………..………………………6 Health Concerns of Workers……………………………………………………………….7 References…………………………………………………………………………………….8 The cliché that change begins with oneself has rung true for me as a school business manager. Recognizing my own need for the improvement of my time management and organization skills has not only benefited me but my whole administrative team as well. Personally, my own efforts for improving my time management strategies have had great impact on my own leadership. I keep in mind Croft’s (1996) recommendation of prioritization, delegation, personal organisation, avoidance of procrastination and stress management as skills to be mastered. Being able to apply Covey, Merril & Merril’s (1994) Time Management Matrix has also been very helpful in my own organization as well as my staff’s since I have passed on its use of the matrix to them. This is especially important because we lead a Christian school that upholds the highest standards of integrity and morality. Of course, if our goals for our students are to be raised as upright and responsible adults, it should begin with ourselves. This report highlights the important aspects that I regard to be essential in school management and some proposed ideas for better team effectiveness. Psychological Contracts Within each organization, workers’ values must be aligned to the company’s. Differing values create conflict and will impede goal achievement. According to Mishra and Morrissey (1990), the following factors propagate trust: open communication; giving workers a greater share in decision making; sharing of critical information and true sharing of perceptions and feelings. Leaders should keep these in mind and ensure that these are always in place. In every employment, employees consciously or unconsciously expect a kind of “psychological contract” apart from the expectations the job usually presents – benefits and compensation for a particular job description. This psychological contract usually includes open and honest communication, managerial support and challenging and interesting work. Employees are becoming increasingly aware of the non-monetary rewards that companies can provide them. It is generally important that the job not only fulfills their economical needs, but their socio-emotional needs as well. “This implies that recruiters need to go beyond a discussion of compensation and benefits and highlight aspects of their organization that job candidates will find intrinsically satisfying.” (Lester, Clair & Kickul, 2001, n.p.) Leaders and managers must be cognizant of and responsive to their employees’ perception of their psychological contracts with the company. Things such as meaningful work, recognition, creative freedom and opportunities for personal growth, are desired by all workers. Effective Communication Leaders and managers must maintain open and honest communication with their members, bearing in mind their socio-emotional needs and concerns, and being encouraging enough to boost their self-esteem. Lack of communication is ultimately problematic because it suggests to employees that management may be susceptible to perceived psychological contract breaches across a variety of areas because the basic issue of communication is not met. Leaders must be able to invest more time developing and strengthening healthy relationships with their staff so they are kept abreast of their progress in both personal and professional areas. Leadership Clark (2008) defines leadership as follows: “Leadership is a process by which a person influences others to accomplish an objective and directs the organization in a way that makes it more cohesive and coherent. Leaders carry out this process by applying their leadership attributes, such as beliefs, values, ethics, character, knowledge, and skills” (Clark, 2008, para.3). Leithwood & Riehl (2003) posit that a good leader has a clear vision of where he is going and sets directions to others towards that vision. He collaborates with other people on ways and means to reach their goals and not focus the authority on himself. In doing so, he empowers them to be confident in their abilities and motivates them to welcome challenges and opportunities. Because of his positive influence, he gains the respect of everyone to follow his lead while pursuing a common mission for the growth and development of the organization. Leaders inspire a shared vision with their followers. They communicate their vision well enough for their followers to understand clearly, and together, they see an uplifting and ennobling future (Kouzes and Posner, 2007) . Leaders enlist more people to share such a vision by appealing to their values, interests, hopes and dreams (Five Practices of the Exemplary Leader, n.d.) Leaders are also enablers. They are good at encouraging people to act on their own by providing them with the tools and methods to solve their problems. Leaders foster collaboration and among their members (Kouzes and Posner, 2007). When the followers are trusted to fulfill tasks delegated to them, they feel confident and capable to do more for the team. Leaders have to be good models, most especially when the going gets tough. They should exhibit an attitude and behavior of positivism that their followers can emulate. Leaders set examples consistent with their own values. They are not afraid to stand for their beliefs. To encourage their followers, they create opportunities for their followers to experience small wins with the hopes of eventually gaining bigger ones (Kouzes and Posner, 2007). Leaders should encourage their followers’ hearts by recognizing individual contributions and celebrating team accomplishments (Kouzes and Posner, 2007). Such positive response further motivates others to work even harder. From the foregoing, it has been established that an effective leader has a good command of his team. Of course, this also goes for school managers who lead an administrative staff to run a school with him. The staff members under him should provide their utmost cooperation and support in order for the whole leadership team to function at its best for the school’s best interest. Mentoring A leader is considered a mentor to his team members. Learning in a mentoring relationship is not one-way. Both parties benefit from it - the mentee, for obvious reasons of imbibing wisdom from the mentor, and the mentor, for being updated on current trends that he needs to incorporate in his mentoring. A mentor, being looked up to as a professional, needs to be a step ahead of his mentee in terms of what he needs to teach. Thus, he himself must enrich his knowledge with research. A leader derives much fulfillment is witnessing the growth and development of his team members in areas he helped them with. Hay (1995) differentiates learning that comes in three levels in a mentoring relationship. The first level is traditional learning, which is the usual coaching and teaching about how to do things properly. An example is a manager giving extra time to help out a team member on a particularly difficult area such as dealing with parent complaints. The next level is transitional learning which is about how things may be done differently. Learners make transitions that require them to be deeply aware of their goals and objectives and what to do in order to achieve them by trying out a different approach. In every step of the way, they need to reflect if they are on the right track. The deepest level of learning is transformational learning, which is about learning to learn. The team member has already developed skills of deep awareness and analysis of his motives and actions, and the leader collaborates with him in increasing his openness to learning. The process of learning is emphasized more than skills and techniques. Deep learning is something that more experienced learners become aware of. It entails “having a grasp of the structure of a discipline, seeing how things are related, using the ideas in novel situations and evaluating, even challenging the knowledge claims embedded in the discipline” (Stoll, L., Fink, D. & Earl, L., 2003). This is far different from rote learning most children are exposed to – memorizing facts, formulas, etc., which is more of surface learning that goes with an unreflective attitude. Deep learning comes out of sense-making activities, which are made up of conscious attention, organizing and reorganizing ideas, assimilating or accommodating to new ideas and constant reshuffling and reorganizing in efforts to connect ideas to coherent patterns. It should be a leader’s goal to develop deep learning in his team members. That way, on their own, they would be trusted enough to know what to do even in crucial times when the leader is not around. Motivation A leader needs to be able to motivate his team members. Handy (1999) reports that the initial goals of motivation research was to encourage individuals to provide better service to their employers by exerting more effort and maximizing their talents at work. Having a well-motivated workforce may be equivalent to better work productivity and success in the achievement of goals for the organization. Additional advantages are lower level of absenteeism and staff turnovers because the employees are satisfied with their work. This also means that training and recruitment costs are lowered because work positions are always reliably staffed (Dawson, 2009). Douglas McGregor’s Theory X and Y gained much attention in the 1960’s. He claimed that an individual falls under either of 2 categories, X or Y. The X individual needs a lot of controlling, directing, coercion and thereat just so he gets work done. On the other hand, individuals under Theory Y do not see work as tedious and instead, commits to the goals they have set. Meeting these goals becomes the reward in itself. The average individual stays in the middle ground. He prefers to be directed and avoids responsibility as much as he can. However, when left with no choice, he learns to accept it and carry it out. Further, even if imagination or creativity is widely distributed across the population, individual potentials of people are only partially used in work (Dawson, 2009). This now begs the question of how leaders can find members who fall under the Theory Y category, those who are motivated enough to give their best to the job. Other early motivation theories include the Satisfaction Theory, the Incentive Theory and the Intrinsic Theory. The Satisfaction theory posits that a satisfied worker works even harder and proves his loyalty to the organization he belongs to by staying longer there. Who would want to leave a work environment that provides satisfaction? If one is happy there, there would be little no motivation to leave, and utmost motivation to stay on. The Incentive theory claims that an individual will increase his efforts to obtain a reward, which are mostly compensation packages such as salary increases or access to more company benefits. The Intrinsic theory is culled from Maslow’s theory of Hierarchy of Needs. He categorized human needs as hierarchal from the basic physiological needs moving to safety, belongingness and love, esteem and finally self-actualization. Maslow contends that these needs serve as motivators (Handy, 1999). Money and other status symbols like higher job positions and titles, more spacious and opulent offices, and the like do not really increase one’s motivation (Kohn, 1999). This may seem unbelievable, but each time a person is extrinsically-rewarded for doing something, it reduces their intrinsic motivation. Employers need to remember that intrinsic motivation spurs an individual to perform well and to high standards because the person does something on his own volition and commits to doing his best in the task (Kjerulf, n.d.). Knowledge of member motivation is an advantage for leaders. When this knowledge is applied, it becomes a win-win situation for both parties since the team members are motivated to pursue shared organizational goals while the leaders encourage the productivity in his organization. Professional Development In line with understanding employees’ needs and concerns, employers should be ready to invest in their professional and personal development. Regular trainings and participation in seminars or enrollment in courses shouldered by the company (whether partial or full) may be perceived as part of the job, but it should be communicated to the employees that although application of their learning will highly profit the company, ultimately it will redound to their own benefit. This knowledge from trainings is bound to increase their as well as the company’s market value. Performance Assessment For management, the evaluation of organizational and employee performance allows them to check that strategic business objectives are valid, being successfully communicated throughout the organisation and being achieved. Appraising and managing performance are critical management responsibilities and vital part of the organisation strategic management process. Cheatle (2001) sees performance assessment (PA) as an essential tool in Human Resource Management. Traditionally, it has been associated with assessing the performance of individuals against the organization’s set objectives to ensure that they are making the contributions required of them. In recent years, this has evolved to include goals such as systematically developing individuals to make sure their contributions are maximized while being fulfilled in their jobs, that they have adequate skills required to develop in their roles in the organization, and to aid the retention of these individuals in the organization. Stone (2002) defines it as a vital tool for strategy execution by “providing a dynamic link to employee recruitment, selection, training and development, career planning, compensation and benefits, safety and health and industrial relations” (p.264). Further, Stone explains: “It signals to managers and employees what is really important; it provides ways to measure what is important; it fixes accountability for behaviour and results; and it helps in improving performance. Finally, performance appraisal is necessary to defend the organisation against individuals who legally challenge the validity of management decisions relating to promotions, transfers, salary changes ,and, termination” (p. 264) Health Concerns of Workers Workers need to contend with the demands of their jobs. They cannot escape paperwork, performance evaluations and a series of meetings. Living a life full of stress in a prolonged period may cause harm to one’s health. It can also dampen his motivation on what used to be something that impassioned him. This is called ‘burnout’. Burnout obviously affects a person’s productivity and quality of life. Losing the flame for something that used to excite and fulfill him may cause depleted physical energy, emotional exhaustion, lowered immunity to illness, less investment in interpersonal relationships, increasingly pessimistic outlook, increased absenteeism and inefficiency at work (Scott, 2007). Burnout may also be the cause of the fast turnover of staff. Management must be able to come up with ways to reduce it like giving people more allowance to work on their own and not being too demanding. Being given enough trust to decide on one’s own in situations that call for one’s expertise like sales may be enough to make one feel fulfilled. Management and employees must have less frequent but more thorough, well-planned meetings that meet its goals. The people in charge of facilitating meetings must draw up a written agenda and estimated time spent for each item. During the meeting each item must be thoroughly discussed and it should be made clear to everyone in the meeting. Opening communication lines for both professional concerns and personal adjustments to changes implemented by management must be encouraged. School business managers are essential to the organization and are central in maintaining the well-being of the administrative team as well as their contribution to the school and the maintenance of harmony among all members of the organization. Leaders truly carry a huge responsibility and the fulfillment of its several tasks for the organization may determine the success or failure of a whole school. References Cheatle, K. (2001). Mastering human resource management. New York: Palgrave. Clark, D. (2008) Concepts of Leadership in Hutter, A.D. (1982) Poetry in psychoanalysis: Hopkins, Rosetti, Winnicott. International Review of Psycho-Analysis 9, 303-16. Retrieved on September 1, 2010 from http://nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/leadcon.html Covey, S.R., Merrill, A.R. & Merill, R.R.(1994), First Things First. Simon & Schuster Croft, C. (1996) Time Management for Results. Thomson Learning Emea Dawson, C. (2009) Introduction to Business, Entrepreneurship and employability. MMU, Manchester. Handy, C. (1999) Understanding Organizations. 4th edition. London, UK: Penguin. Hay, J. (1999) Learning and changing. Transformational mentoring: creating developmental alliances for changing organizational cultures. London: McGraw-Hill. Kjerulf, A. (n.d.), “Happy Hour is 9 to 5: Learn How To Love Your Job, Love Your Life and Kick Butt at Work” Retrieved on August 30, 2010 from http://positivesharing.com/happyhouris9to5/bookhtml/happyhouris9to56.ht ml Kohn, A. (1999) Punished by Rewards. Houghton Mifflin Kouzes, J. & Posner, B. (2007). The leadership challenge, 4th edition. San Francisco, Ca: Jossey- Bass Lester, S. Clair, E, Kickul, J. (2001) Psychological Contracts in the 21st Century: What Employees Value Most and How Well Organizations Are Responding to These Expectations. Human Resource Planning. Volume: 24. Issue: 1. Liethwood, K.A. & Riehl, C. (2003 ) What We Know About Successful School Leadership. NCSL. Mishra, J., & Morrissey, M. A. (1990). Trust in employee/employer relationships: A survey of West Michigan managers. Public Personnel Management, 19.4, winter 1990, 443-463. Scott, E. (2007) Stress and burnout: burnout symptoms and causes. Retrieved on August 26, 2010 from http://stress.about.com/od/burnout/a/stressnburnout.htm\ Stoll, L., Fink, D. & Earl, L.(2003), It’s About Learning. Stone, R. J. (2002). Human resource management (4th ed.). Sydney and Melbourne: John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd. Read More