Understand different approaches to management and leadership - Assignment Example

Understanding Different Approaches to Management and Leadership Organization usually differs in their approaches to management and in terms of the leadership styles that they employ. This paper aims to look at different approaches to management. The paper will concentrate on one organization with a unique approach to management. In this case, the organization of choice is the Coca Cola Company. This consideration further looks at development of management thought in the organization, scientific management, classical management, the human relations approach, bureaucracy, contingency approach, and system approach. The paper also talks of the various functions of management that include planning, organising, commanding, coordinating, and controlling. These functions are linked with different managerial roles such as informational, interpersonal, and decisional. The paper also considers the frame of reference for leadership activities such as opportunist, technician, diplomat, achiever, strategist, pluralist, change, transformational, and magician. In organizations, various leadership styles are used but the commonly used leadership approach due to its effectiveness is transformational leadership style. The Coca Cola Company uses this style among some others in its management. In this leadership approach, leaders are characterised by integrity, inspiration, goal setting, and motivational. Other than portraying integrity, leaders in this kind of leadership approach inspire people, who have shared visions, set clear goals, and encourage people through motivational programs towards meeting such goals. This kind of leadership has leaders who manage delivery and ensure frequent and good communication with their teams (Mind Tools Ltd 2013). Leadership styles may not fit in every organization but any style employed by an organization need to fit to a particular situation or a given group within the organization. All leadership styles are critical to an organization since an organization may make an application of another leadership style. The transactional leadership style on the other hand begins with an idea of team members agreeing to obey their team leaders especially after accepting a job. This style also applied in the organization where team members are paid in return by the organization for their efforts as well as their compliances. In this style, the leaders can initiate punishment to team members given a situation whereby their works hardly meet the required standards or expectations. The style is controlling and paternalistic in nature but with some benefit such as its ability to clarify workers’ roles and responsibilities. Again, people in this leadership are in a position of thriving provided they can be motivated by external rewards such as compensations (Mind Tools Ltd 2013). The major problem with this style of leadership is that the team members can hardly contribute to their job satisfaction. This style is like a kind of management but hardly a true leadership style. The autocratic leadership style is specifically an extreme form of the transactional leadership. Leaders have complete power of controlling their people. Many organizations use this style when the organizations want to deny their people the opportunity of making suggestions. This kind of leadership style is highly efficient. On the other hand, leadership styles such as bureaucracy operate in accordance with laid rules and regulations about organizational processes. The style of leadership ensures that people follow rules seriously with all procedures of various processes being followed precisely. It application is in organization with risk working processes and jobs. Working with machineries, handling toxic substances, or working as dangerous heights requires that leaders use of this leadership style (Mind Tools Ltd 2013). Organizations such as construction firms, chemical firms, and manufacturing business organisations require the application of this kind of leadership style. Bureaucracy is also highly applicable in financial institutions especially in working activities that require the handling of large sums of money. The Coca Cola Company makes use of bureaucracy due to the various and standard processes initiated. Organizations relying of flexibility or teamwork would however find this style inefficient and inapplicable. Leaders are able to achieve success because of their strictness in the application of rules and procedures in various activities and working conditions. Leaders hardly achieve success due to their proficiency in their work or their professionalism. Organizations that find bureaucracy inapplicable can make use of charismatic leadership style, which in many ways resembles transformational leadership style. The leaders in this case are inspiring. They encourage teamwork and highly motivate other individuals to move forward. However, charismatic leader are more focused on themselves than their people and this could lead to making little change. The leaders believe more in themselves in organizational achievements than they believe in their teams. Most of the team members on the other hand end up putting their trust on their leaders leading the prevailing projects to collapse. The leaders are trusted in the sense that they can hardly do wrong. Application of Democratic or participatory leadership may be applicable when other styles of leadership fail (Mind Tools Ltd 2013). The democratic leadership style involves leaders who make the final decisions on decisions. The decision-making processes involve team members. Team members are also engaged in various projects beside the decision-making processes. This leadership style is good in the sense that team members gain high satisfaction in their jobs, which contribute to success in whatever they do in the organization (Daft and A.Armstrong 2009). Through this leadership style, people have great chances of developing their skills and they are motivated in a way that would make them work hard. Involving people in decision-making process may also involve that application of laissez-Faire style of leadership, in which people are left to work on their own. In most cases, this leadership style is applicable where managers have insufficient control over their people. Other leadership style include task oriented and people oriented leadership styles. Task oriented has leaders who focus on tasks being accomplished while people oriented involves concerns on the people satisfaction, organizing, and support (Daft and A.Armstrong 2009). The kind of leadership style applied and its effectiveness depends on the management approach that an organization applies. On the other hand, organizational theory underpins the practice of management in a significant way. Organizational theory involves the sociological study of social organizations including businesses and bureaucracies. This study includes interrelates these organizations with their operational environments (Daft and A.Armstrong 2009). Organization can be described as a social unit of individuals, which is structure as well as managed in a specific way to meet some collective goals and objectives. The practice of management highly depends on the kind of structure that an organization is made of. An organization applies a management practice that best applied to its people especially with respect to the existing goals and objective. The management practice also is influenced by the leadership style initiated in order to meet the set goals and objective within the specified organisation. This aspect brings to different management approaches used by different organization since organization applies management practices based on the organizational structure and the best applicable leadership style. Three approaches to management exist, which include active listening approach, cultivating approach, and steering approach to management. The active listening management approach is a passive approach to management while the cultivating management approach focuses on stimulation of other people’s actions and capacity building. This could be applicable to the Coca Cola Company when it is largely focusing on the community. On the other hand, steering approach involve high levels of control and management. In the active listening approach, people view promises from their leaders as great and wait for such promises to be accomplished without initiating any reactions or contributions. This approach is mainly used in public organizations. The cultivating approach on the other hand relies on the exiting skills in people within an organization. This approach requires assistance from outside communities in order to stimulate participation (Tannenbaum and Schmidt 1973). Existing communities of interest are however hardly to identify. This approach is great but requires identification of such communities, which is a difficult task. The characteristics of a particular problem also need to be established. The steering approach to management is unlike the other two since it reflects instrumental project approached to policy delivery. These projects are mainly engagement is structure. The kind of management approach applied depends on the organization, its structure, the kind of involvement, and the type of leadership applied (Daft and A.Armstrong 2009). Cultivating management approaches can yield powerful outcomes in the areas of community development, capacity building, and the stimulation of active communities of interest like the case of the Coca Cola Company. In community development, an organization would largely depend on the application of cultivating approach to management (Tannenbaum and Schmidt 1973). The approach to management used by an organization should yield positive results and should tally with various factors such as the style of leadership, the goals, as well as the objectives of the organization. Bibliography Daft, R., & A.Armstrong. 2009. Organization Theory and Design. Toronto: Nelson. Mind Tools Ltd. 2013. Leadership Styles: Choosing the Right Style for the Situation. Retrieved July 29, 2013, from http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_84.htm Tannenbaum, R., & Schmidt, W. 1973. How to choose a leadership pattern. Harvard Business Review, May/June 197. Read More