Leadership and Management - Assignment Example

Leadership and Management Introduction: Leadership is an essential factor for any business organization that affects motivation of the working teams. Leaders are capable of looking through different problems in the working groups and find effective solutions in order to achieve harmony in the group and inspire the members to work effectively towards attaining the goals of the organization (Bowerman and Wart 2010). If working groups are encountered with any problem it is essential for the leaders to encourage group problem solving through creative measures that define the problem, analyse it, and find a suitable solution followed by its implementation (Group Problem Solving n.d.). The present study takes into consideration a case study associated with DrainFlow Company that has reflected issues of customer and employee dissatisfaction, affecting the overall performance and outcomes of the company. The new regional manager has also come up with solutions to the problems. The problems and the solutions will be discussed, and associating them with organizational theories, conclusions and recommendations will be drawn to learn how effective the solutions could be. The Case of DrainFlow: The Problem and the Solutions: As far as the case of DrainFlow is concerned, it was observed that the new regional manager, Lee, who earlier worked for a competitive company, could realize that the working environment of the company was not motivating for the employees. As a result performance of the employees were so affected that they were not providing the customers with satisfactory services. Thus the company had been encountered with two major problems – lack of motivation for the employees, and customer dissatisfaction. Surveys of the customers as well as of the employees confirmed these issues and the regional manager planned to focus on changing the working pattern of the employees. Thus she proposed plans for rewarding employees for satisfactory performances. Moreover she felt the need for effective employees that she proposed to achieve by replacing the old unstructured interviewing pattern with standardized interviews for recruitment of people in the organization (Robbins and Judge 2010). Organizational Theories: Leadership, Motivation and Group Problem Solving: Leadership and Motivation: The performance of different members in a business organization largely depends on the leadership style followed within the organization and the factors that motivate the employees personally. Employees may be motivated either by external factors like wages and rewards or by internal factors like their relationship with their work. Based on the different needs of different individuals, there are three motivational theories that are applicable for business organizations. These are the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Alderfer’s ERG Theory, and McClelland’s Theory of Needs (Nader n.d.). Maslow divided the needs of humans into five divisions that include their psychological needs, safety needs, relationship needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization. Psychological needs involve the basic needs of an individual like food, shelter, and clothing. Safety needs include security of jobs, a good working environment, and plans for pensions and insurances. Relationship needs reflect the need to socialize and have friends and companions around. Esteem needs are those that are more than the basic needs such as need for appreciation and recognition. Finally, self-actualization is the stage where an individual feels the need to pursue further to achieve something for his own. This need may completely vary from one man to another and tend to become individualistic in nature (Nader n.d.). Alderfer’s theory focused on an individual’s need for existence, thus requiring suitable conditions and materials; the need for relatedness that may be achieved through interactions and communications with others; and the need for growth reflected through their achievements and self-actualization. According to McClelland’s theory individuals feel the need for achievement, affiliation, and power. Thus they feel the need to perform tasks that are challenging, maintain good relationships with others, and have strong influence over others (Nader n.d.). As far as leadership is concerned, an individual is said to be a good leader if he is capable of involving every member of his team to work effectively and achieve goals of the organization. As Trait theory explains, an individual having the traits of aptitude, adjustment, extraversion, meticulousness, openness to fresh practices and self-worth generally become effective leaders. Leadership styles may be authoritarian, democratic or laissez-faire. An authoritarian leader only dictates his followers while a democratic leader believes in a combined process of decision-making. Laissez-faire is the style where the leader does not participate in decision-making at all (Guzman 2013). Functional theory of leadership focuses on the responsibility of the leader to understand the needs of his team members and meet those needs to keep them satisfied. Transactional theory states that leader should be capable of training his team members, and also evaluate them, followed by rewarding or punishing them. Transformational leaders are focused more on motivating the employees by means of communication. Contingency theories imply that there is no single way of best leadership, and that different situations make way for different leadership styles and measures to make the employees work effectively in teams (Guzman 2013). Group Problem Solving: Heider’s Balance Theory is popularly known as an approach for group problem solving. It is assumed under this theory that consistent beliefs and attitudes are preferred over inconsistent beliefs and attitudes by different individuals. The approach is focused on organizing the different components of beliefs and attitudes of individuals based on the situation, in a manner such that they are reciprocally dependable. Thus cognitive consistency is the focus of this theory towards group problem solving. Restructuring of the group or the network has been found to enable the achievement of cognitive consistency in a critical situation (Abimbola, Duimering and Zhong 2006). Application of Theories in the Case Study and Analysis: Considering the form of leadership presented by the regional manager, Lee Reynaldo, at DrainFlow, the Trait theory, Democratic theory, and Transactional theory can be attributed to the scenario. The Trait theory can be associated as Lee presented the characteristics of aptitude, openness to new ideas, and adjustment that are necessary for good leadership (Guzman 2013). Lee did not dictate her terms. Rather, she made proposals to bring change in the leadership and working styles of the company that reflected on her democratic nature of leadership, associated with the Democratic theory of leadership. Also, Lee’s leadership presented the transactional form of leadership as she evaluated the performances of the employees, and decided on a rewarding measure to improve the current state of performance and motivation of the employees (Guzman 2013). Considering the Needs theories as discussed above, it can be said that the employees at DrainFlow were not motivated owing to some of their needs not being fulfilled. Particularly the safety needs – security of job, good working environment – can be said to have remained unfulfilled for the employees at DrainFlow. Lack of motivation reflects this fact that needs of individuals needed to be fulfilled such that they would be encouraged to perform challenging tasks, maintain good relations with each other and perform tasks effectively (Nader n.d.). Lee could be found to focus on meeting one need of the employees, which is the need for rewards and recognition. It has been observed that effective systems of rewards are helpful in making an organization competitive in nature and retaining the effective employees. Rewards also tend to make the employees indulge into more challenging tasks and performing them effectively, thus increasing their motivation (Hurd, Barcelona and Meldrum n.d.). Considering the group problem solving, it can be said that Lee determined the need for the balanced approached where the need for cognitive consensus proved to be essential (Abimbola, Duimering and Zhong 2006). This is reflected from Lee’s proposal to recruit effective employees for the company by means of a standardized interview structure, focused on being capable of achieving the new goals of the organization. Conclusion: From the above case study, it can be concluded that Lee proved to be an effective leader as far as finding solution to the problems of customer dissatisfaction and employee motivation was concerned. Instead of ignoring the problem, she surveyed and determined that a reward program might prove to be effective to motivate the employees towards effective performance that was lacking in the present situation. Thus she proved to be a responsible leader trying to improve the performance of all her team members such that the organizational goals may be achieved. The proposal for a standardized method of recruitment can also be said to be an effective measure suggested by Lee for recruitment of effective people which is otherwise not achieved through unstructured interview patterns. Recommendations: Although Lee considered the vital issues faced by the company and proposed suitable measures to improve the condition of working and increase employee motivation, yet it can be recommended that further improved solutions could be achieved if the functional and transformational forms of leadership could be followed. With functional leadership, the leader could try to determine the exact needs of the employees that might vary from one individual to another. Thus if a certain individual has a need other than rewards and recognition, then rewards would not be enough to motivate him. Understanding the particular needs of employees and hence fulfilling them would be a better option for improvement. Moreover, transformational leadership would be recommended in such cases as it allows better communications between the leader and the employees, thereby improving the relation and move towards more cognitive consensus for problem solving. References Abimbola, G.A., Duimering, P.R. and Z. Zhong (2006) A Balance Theory Approach to Group Problem Solving. Cogsci. [Online]. Available at: http://cogsci.uwaterloo.ca/courses/COGSCI600.2007/Abimbola.pdf [Accessed 11 August 2013]. Bowerman, K.D. and M.V. Wart (2010) The Business of Leadership: An Introduction (Google eBook). New York: M.E. Sharpe. Group Problem Solving (n.d.) Hawaii. [Online]. Available at: http://www.hawaii.edu/mauispeech/pdf/gpssteps.pdf [Accessed 10 August 2013]. Guzman, O. (2013) Organizational Leadership Theories. Chron. [Online]. Available at: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/organizational-leadership-theories-284.html [Accessed 11 August 2013]. Hurd, A.R., Barcelona, R.J. and J.T. Meldrum (n.d.) Recreation managers can use rewards to improve employee motivation, retention. Humankinetics. [Online]. Available at: http://www.humankinetics.com/excerpts/excerpts/recreation-managers-can-use-rewards-to-improve-employee-motivation-retention [Accessed 11 August 2013]. Nader, R. (n.d.) Leadership and Motivation. IBRD. [Online]. Available at: http://www.ibrd.gov.nl.ca/regionaldev/lm.pdf [Accessed 10 August 2013]. Robbins, S.P. and T.A. Judge (2010) Repairing Jobs that Fail to Satisfy. DrainFlow Case Study. Read More