Leadership and Effective Workplace Relationships - Assignment Example

LEAD AND EFFECTIVE WORKPLACE RELATIONSHIPS Student’s Name: Code + Course name Professor’s name University City, State Date PART A 1. Effective workplace relations begin with (but don’t end with) a basic understanding of the legal requirements of employers and managers and compliance with the law. Explain the role of the Fair Work Ombudsman in this regard. The role of the Fair Work Ombudsman is to promote harmonious, cooperative, and productive workplace relations. The FWO also monitors, investigates, inquires into, and ascertains compliance with workplace laws in Australia. As a result, it acts as the single contact point for timely and reliable information regarding the workplace relations system in Australia. The FWO educates individuals working in Australia about fair work practices, their obligations, and rights in the workplace. In the process, the workers gain an in-depth understanding of the legal requirements of manager and employers as well as law compliance. 2. Management and leadership are terms that are often used to mean the same thing, yet they are quite different. Explain the difference between being a manager and a leader. A manager exercises direction of a group of individuals such as employees through supervisory, administrative, or executive positions. As a result, a manager handles task-oriented roles associated with staff development, resolving conflicts, mentoring individuals with high potentials, and ensuring the maintenance of discipline and ethics. On the other hand, a leader focuses on inspiration and motivation besides having an influencing relationship, characteristic or ability that portrays him or her as one who serves others while following them. As opposed to a manager that does not have followers, it is imperative for a leader to have followers (Algahtani 2014). 3. Fill in the following table showing the differences. (See Britt Andreatta’sFundamentals Of Leadership in Lynda.com) Management Leadership 1.Approach React to change within the organization by directing employees to employ corrective measures to a situation of concern Create change within the organization by communicating with the employees to determine the best way of responding to the situation at hand. 2. Timeframe Issues a fixed timeline for achieving a specific objective Negotiates the timeframe for achieving the objective to ensure that all employees have understood all aspects of the program o change 3.Focus Managers focus on their ideas that they deem appropriate to the situation Leaders create shared focus with employees 4.Resources Managers direct the existing resources to implement a task Leaders work with the resources especially people to implement a task 5. Task goals Managers communicate task goals to employees Leaders persuade employees to achieve task goals 6. People skills Managers expect employees to use their skills to achieve a task Leaders develop the appropriate skills among individuals to enable them 4. Review the four styles of leadership on page 292 of Cole and describe a situation from your own experience when each style would be the appropriate style to use. Leadership style Situation where this style is appropriate High directive/Low relationship The case of a new employee that has just started learning the job where the leader acts as a competent and good coach. High directive/High relationship Where the leader knows the problem but does not have all the information while the workers know their jobs. High relationship/Low directive Where the employee knows more about the job than the leader and has to take more ownership of the job. Low relationship/Low directive Where the employee is responsible for the job and knows about it. 5. “Call a meeting” is often the default method for managers to disseminate workplace information, but not necessarily the only way or the best way. Suggest appropriate ways to disseminate information to employees on the following: Workplace information Suggested method(s) of communication Code of conduct Availing a copy of the code of conduct to each employee through emails and conferences Information on an employee’s salary, superannuation and taxation The sending of individual emails and letters that contain such information Feedback on individual performance The use of personalized emails and letters Workplace safety information Calling a meeting or inviting employees to a conference How to use a new software system Inviting employees to a conference that explains the use of the new system Team objectives and targets Calling a staff meeting or inviting staffs to a conference a) On what matters is it mandatory to undertake workplace consultation? Workplace consultation is necessary when there is need for identifying hazards and assessing risks associated with work safety and health. Workplace consultation is also necessary when there is need for adopting a new work system or when seeking feedback on the adequacy of the available facilities. Workplace consultation is also necessary when there is need for identifying ways of minimizing risks. b) How is this usually done? Workplace consultations take place through pre-work meetings and health and work committees that are most appropriate in addressing such needs. Before calling the meeting, it is imperative that the holders of the consultation should be aware of the specific need or issue that requires addressing. During the consultation, it is necessary to give workers the opportunity to express their opinions and views regarding the health, safety, or work-related issues under consideration and integrate the views in the final decisions. In the event of the representation of the workers by a union or any organization, it is essential to include members of the union in the consultation. 6. It is good practice when reconfiguring offices and workspaces that employees are consulted. Provide an example of a simple process of consultation and feedback that would be suitable for this situation. Yes, it is good practice to consult employees when reconfiguring offices and workspaces. The reconfiguration process aims at improving the productivity of the organization that depends on employee productivity. In the consultation process, the management should start with communicating the need for reconfiguring offices to the employees. This includes communicating the point of intersection between the duties of employees and the reconfigured workspaces and offices and the expectations of the organization from the employees. Employees should then have the chance of providing their opinion and feedback on the process to ensure that the implement decisions take into consideration the opinions and feedbacks of the employees. 7. What does Britt Andreatta in the Fundamentals of Leadership identify as the 10 most common causes of employee disengagement? List them. Feeling invisible when the organization fails to measure or recognize efforts Finding the job or workplace to be different from what was expected Little or no coaching or feedback to workplace roles Getting overworked that leads to stress Lack of confidence or trust in the senior leaders Difficulty in integrating into the existing culture Poor communication of role expectations or usefulness Unclear vision or strategy of the company Lack of support from the management and co-workers Unclear opportunities for advancement 8. What are the 5 strategies that Andreatta outlines for building a culture of employee engagement? Using flexible management styles Applying emotional intelligence Establishing clear values or organization’s purpose Implementing effective coaching skills Effective management of employee performance 9. Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones spent three years researching what the best workplace on earth would look like. One of their key findings was a dream workplace would have six virtues, one of which was that it would nurture individual differences. (See Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones (2013) Creating the Best Workplace on Earth, https://hbr.org/2013/05/creating-the-best-workplace-on-earth/ar/1) Explain how individual differences can be nurtured in the workplace to improve innovation and problem-solving. It is evident that very employee has the potential of developing an innovative idea. Therefore, it is necessary to embrace communication at all levels within the organization to ensure the tapping of all innovative ideas from employees. It is also necessary to hold brainstorming sessions with employees on a regular basis to identify solutions to problems. The organization should also introduce frameworks that recognize and rewards innovative solutions that work. The organization should also give employees the necessary tools that would enable them to achieve the desired solutions. The organization should also develop an individualized framework of nurturing the creative skills of individuals. 10. The ability to build supportive networks is recognised as a core competency for leaders. Provide 2 examples of your own external business networks and explain how each contributes to the outcomes of your organisation. My first external business network comprises of fellow leaders of other organizations in the country. From the network, I am able to understand emerging trends in the corporate world and changes in the government’s policy towards businesses and enterprises in the country. The network contributes towards the positive performance of the organization since it enables me to align the firm in accordance with the current legislation. The second external network comprises of other managers that run firms within the same industry. The network enables us to discuss issues affecting our industry and understand the strategies employed by some firms in achieving competitive advantage. From the strategies, I am able to develop and implement appropriate strategies that would steer my organization to success. 11. Wherever people work together, conflict is inevitable. What are the key components of an effective conflict resolution or grievance policy? Neutrality is the first key component of an effective conflict resolution policy. In the event of a conflict, it is imperative to stay neutral to both parties and communicate to them the need to acknowledge the opinions of each other. Regardless of the magnitude of the conflict, it is essential to acknowledge that it is also a conflict. As a result, there is need for necessary intervention to deal with it. Focusing on the problem rather than the individuals in the conflict is the other key element of the conflict resolution policy. Therefore, it is necessary to avoid engaging in personal attacks and the use of accusatory language. Finding a common ground is the other key element in the conflict resolution process. This requires the identification of the areas of agreement and leveraging on the areas to achieve a common understanding. Finally, a conflict resolution process should exercise patience regardless of the need to be decisive. Patience allows the conflicting parties to express their parts of the story thereby contributing towards the effective understanding of the underlying issue. 12. Sometimes managers have to deal with very difficult situations. Bullying is one of these situations. a. What systems and processes does your workplace have for managing this? The process of managing workplace bullying starts with the reception of the complaint from the complainant. The system then recommends conducting an initial assessment of the conflict to ascertain that the complaint falls under bullying. The initial assessment also includes determining the immediate action required to respond with the claim. The nest step entails the provision of the substance of allegations to the individual or group that forms the subject of the allegation. The next step entails determining the proper action required to address the allegation such as mediation, investigation, or facilitation. The succeeding processes include assessing the risk and implementing interim controls, finding an investigator where investigation is necessary, carrying out the investigation, reviewing the findings and identifying the appropriate course of action, and implementing the recommendations. In the event of the substantiation of the complaint, the final step is the implementation of the recommendations for both individuals and the organization. In the event of complaint non-substantiation, the system still advocate for the implementation of recommendations for individuals and the organization. b. Describe how you would implement the process to handle a case of suspected bullying in accordance with your organisation’s processes and procedures. Upon receiving the complaint, I would conduct the initial assessment to determine whether the complaint is a case of bullying. After identifying that the issue is a typical case of bullying, I would contact the accused individual and inform him or her about the substance of the accusation. Depending on the type of complaint, I would decide on whether to mediate, facilitate, or investigate the case. In the event that the case requires investigation, I would assess the risk and implement interim controls for the risk. I would then identify an investigator that would carry out the investigation to determine the credibility of the complaint. I would then review the findings of the investigation to determine the appropriate necessary action. After implementing the recommendations from the investigation such as suspension or fining, I would also implement recommendations for individuals and the organization in the event of complaint substantiation or non-substantiation. PART B Scenario 1 You have recently moved into the role of leader of a diverse team in terms of experience, background and culture. A recent climate survey, which has been provided to you as part of your induction into the role, shows a high level of distrust among the team both of management and of each other. This has also spilled over to relationships with key customers who have complained that messages provided to one team member for another rarely seem to be passed on. Consequently team members have developed a fortress-like mentality and are very territorial, unwilling to share information and sometimes deliberately undermining the efforts of others on the team. Three team members have split off into a faction along cultural lines and have expressed an unwillingness to work with any of the other team members on projects. Re-establishing trust and confidence and ensuring the organisation’s cultural diversity and ethical values are adhered to is the primary objective for your first 90 days in the role. Tasks: Read Cole, Chapter 7 and research the Jacobs model for building trust in the workplace 1. Provide a brief overview of how trust can be won or lost in the workplace. 2. Based on your research, prepare a plan to gain and maintain the trust of the team, firstly in yourself and secondly in each other. Your plan should include: a. The objective b. Overall strategy c. The policies, processes and systems you need to develop or implement. d. The networks, internal and external, you would call on to provide assistance e. How you will monitor progress and evaluate the outcomes of your strategy. Overview In the quest to win trust in the workplace, it is necessary to start with creating the sense of belonging in the workplace by ensuring the connectedness of all employees. It is essential to ensure that people feel the essence of their connectedness to the team. In the next step, I would communicate the significant of the positions of each of the staffs in the workplace. By so doing, all individuals will feel that the organization values them thereby feeling less threatened. I would also instil the learning culture among employees by giving them challenging roles that require the acquisition of additional knowledge or skills. Through the provision of challenging roles to employees, they would have the additional motivation to carry out their roles in the workplace. Instilling the knowledge that the positions of the employees are secure would make the employees to feel more secure in their positions thereby preventing them from feeling threatened that impact negatively on productivity and performance levels. The next step would entail recognizing the voices of all individuals in the workplace. Ensuring the recognition of employee voices encourages them to express their views and ideas thereby making them feel the acknowledgment of their contributions by the organization. The other essential step of achieving trust is the introduction of the fairness culture within the organization that would enhance productivity and reduce stress among the employees. Finally, it is essential to grant workers choice and autonomy over their roles in the workplace to enable them strike a balance between their work and family lives. Objective To re-stablish trust and confidence and ensure the upholding of ethical values and cultural diversity in the workplace. Overall Strategy Re-establishing trust and confidence and ensuring the upholding of ethical values and cultural diversity would focus on the implementation of eight key drivers of trust. The drivers include connecting staffs to create the sense of belonging, valuing and communicating the significance of all positions in the organisation, creating challenging roles that motivate employees, assuring employees about the security of their jobs, and encouraging and acknowledging the views of employees. The other drivers include exhibiting fairness in the handling of employees, granting employees autonomy and choice of their roles, and establishing a clear purpose for all employees. Policies, Process, and Systems The re-establishment of trust within the organisation requires the existence of a stable normative frame. The system should ensure that all individuals exhibit the motive to uphold the relationship into the future to guarantee the continued existence of the culture in the workplace. At the onset of the process is the elimination of legitimate distrust situations by implementing arrangements that align the interests of all individuals in the workplace. The success of the relationship building initiative also requires the engagement of all people in actions that convey positive relational signals to others. Individuals should avoid acting in ways that reveal negative relational signals. Finally, the implemented organizational policy should be capable of stimulating the resonance of all staffs to the stable normative frame (Six 2007). Internal and External Networks The success of the culture strategy requires the use of internal and external actors in the processes and systems. The role of the networks would be the establishment of ties that link individuals within and outside the organization. The establishment of ties bases on communication, especially task-related communications. In such ties, employees would be able to identify specific individuals that they resort to when discussing business matters. This also includes advice-related communications that enable employees to seek advice whenever confronted with problems at work from their peers either within or outside the organization. External networks aim at establishing friendship, affect, collaboration, and exchange ties among others that could be beneficial to the performance of the employee in the organization (Lazer & Katz 2003). Monitoring and Evaluating Strategy Progress and Outcomes Monitoring the success of the cultural change initiative would entail looking at the key indicators of cultural change in the organization. These include looking for evidence of the engagement of employees in self-examination and self-reflection when employees make joint decisions based on the performance of the organization. The readiness and quest of employees to learn new concepts and skills related to their work, ability of employees to learn from their mistakes and make positive changes, and regular communications between employees that fosters knowledge transfer are some of the indicators of positive cultural change that indicate the building of trust among employees (Mayne 2009). _____________________________________________________________ Scenario 2 You have been asked to coordinate a project to develop a new customer relationship management system which requires consultation and collaboration across three separate units within your organisation: Sales, IT and Marketing. These units have vastly different workplace cultures and focus. The Sales Department are very action orientated and are impatient with detail. They just want something easy to use since they are the people having to input most of the data. The Marketing Department are concerned with the look and feel of the system and whether it provides the necessary reporting. They like a lot of consultation and communication. On the other hand, the IT Department are process driven and inclined to prefer to get on with the work without too much discussion and this has caused some miscommunication and dissatisfaction with new systems in the past. Ari, the programmer, is extremely quiet in meetings and you have noticed he has difficulty confronting the demands of the Marketing team, tending to say “yes” to every demand and then not delivering Your aim is to ensure there is collaboration and appropriate consultation across departments to get the best solution. Tasks: a. Develop a communication strategy to facilitate communication and feedback throughout the project’s life cycle. b. Draw up a process for resolving any issues that may arise. c. Explain what adjustments you might need to make to your own interpersonal communication style to get the best contribution from each of the members of the project team and provide the necessary glue to hold them together. d. Describe what guidance and coaching you would provide to Ari to ensure that he does not over-promise and under-deliver. Communication Strategy At the onset of the communication process, it is essential to ensure that the communication is factual, honest, and open. The communication should also target specific audiences in the project. Regardless of the type of communication, it is necessary that the communication should be clear, up-to-date, and timely. The communication channels should also target all stakeholders in the change process such as the project board, project group, end users, and advisory team such as IT personnel. The communication strategy would also have a monitoring and evaluation framework. Conflict Resolution Chart Figure 1: The Conflict Resolution Process Adjustments to the Current Interpersonal Communication Skills At the onset of the adjustment process, I need to strengthen my self-awareness skills to remind me about my strengths and weaknesses in communication. In the communication process, I should always keep in mind the other individuals in the conversation by placing myself in their shoes and trying to understand their feelings or opinions regarding the issue at hand. Regardless of the outcome of the conversation, I should ensure that it yields a “win-win” situation for both parties. I also need to gather all essential facts before embarking on the communication process and remaining unbiased throughout the conversation. I also need to practice the use of a calm tone or approach in interpersonal communication especially in instances that provoke my emotions. It is only after I have calmed down that I should use an open and calm tone to communicate. I also need to improve on my listening skills since they are essential in effective interpersonal communication. Throughout the communication, I should pause at regular intervals to enable the other parties to ask questions or respond to my points. Finally, I should not expect anything at the start of the communication process since there is no guarantee of the specific reactions of the other people in the conversation. Coaching Ari to prevent him from overpromising and under-delivering Ari should learn to keep internal communications open by responding to what can be done and what can’t be done. This would ensure that he only accepts to work on projects that he is capable of delivering. Ari should also talk to other members of the organization about their expectations against what he can accomplish as a programmer. The regular dialogue between Ari and other members in the group would enable the achievement of a compromise of the needs of the individual groups and Ari’s deliverables. Finally, Ari should learn about being transparent on the issue of timelines. In some cases, under-delivering is a consequence of setting realistic targets without having an understanding of the exact time that it would take to work on the project. Reference List Algahtani, A., 2014. Are leadership and management different? A review. Journal of management policies and practices, 2(3), pp.71-82. Lazer, D. and Katz, N., 2003. Building effective intra-organizational networks: The role of teams. Mayne, J., 2009. Building an evaluative culture: The key to effective evaluation and results management. The Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation, 24(2), p.1. Six, F.E., 2007. Building interpersonal trust within organizations: a relational signalling perspective. Journal of Management & Governance, 11(3), pp.285-309. Read More