Administrative office management - Essay Example

Introduction Advances in telecommunication have changed managerial and administrative duties in the office environment. Leadership styles adopted are largely due to these pressures. Additionally, administrators no longer handle conflict management and group dynamics the way thy used to. Career development, legal issues and ethics have also taken a shift from the conventional approaches. These changes will be examined in detail below. (Scholtes, 1988) Critical evaluation of role of supervisors and leadership styles There are three main schools of thought that determine leadership styles adopted. Some researchers claim that certain people are simply born with it. They have the ability to influence other people naturally. On the other hand, other experts suggest that leadership styles are dictated by the given situation facing a group. Groups will change their leadership styles to fit into these ideals. Lastly some people believe that strategies will define the leadership path taken in relation to the leadership traits present within the group. Depending on the three factors discussed, supervisors have the option of choosing one of four leadership styles. An autocratic leadership style is one characterized by leaders who utilize their positions to affect decision making processes. On the other hand, there are also Democratic leadership styles where members of a group or those being led have a say in leadership decisions; authority is not exclusive to one individual but is shared equally among all other stakeholders in the group. In 'Laissez faire' type of leadership, the group largely determines decisions made. Specific leaders play little or no role in the decision making process; tasks and objectives lay in the hands of the people. Lastly, there is the abdacratic leadership style. Here, no single individual takes up the role of a leadership and the group does not also bother with authority. Consequently, such a leadership style has been deemed as the most ineffective because it eventually leads to the breakdown of the group. However, because of the pressures exerted by the up rise in telecommunication and the effect that this has on office work, there is a need to adopt a more proactive approach to leadership. This was brought forward by MacGregor (1978). He asserts that true leadership is achieved through transformational leadership. The latter term means uniting members of an organization through a common vision. It also means applying the following processes; Value Integrity Trust The concept of transformational leadership became very relevant to the office environment due to advances in telecommunications. The latter changed people's role in the office from being mere tools to becoming part of the organizational strategy. Changes in telecommunications brought about shift from the conventional transactional leaders. These are leaders who focus only on making other people follow their strategic will. Such leaders are bale to make large numbers of employees follow them but lack the ability to yield quality results. Transformational leaders are those ones who focus on quality of work even when they do not have many numbers rallying behind them. Bass (1990) and Avolio (1995) developed a method of quantifying the extent of transformational leadership within nay one organization. It was achieved through five dimensions: intellectual stimulation, individualized consideration, inspirational motivation, idealized influence in both the behavioral and attributes realms. Telecommunications have also created more emphasis on the issue of employee satisfaction. This is because many workers now have access to vast amounts of resources about their rights through the internet. Consequently, employers have to ensure that they satisfy those needs. On the other hand advanced telecommunications have assisted leaders in the process of satisfying their staff. They now place a lot of emphasis on the path-goal model of leadership. In this approach, leaders aim at achieving organizational goals by eliminating all the impediments within the organization. This is especially in relation to the employees. Many experts have likened such an approach to an orchestra. They explain that a conductor is usually presented with a number of talented musicians with varied abilities. His role is to ensure that all the musicians contribute towards the common output through harmonizing their talents. Such a conductor is faced with the challenge of ensuring that the musicians accept their roles in the composition. Additionally, the conductor is also expected to endure that his music is satisfactory to the audience. (Scholtes, 1988) Differences between traditional and protean attitudes towards career development and barriers to career progress Traditional attitudes towards career development in the workplace were mainly affected by the scientific theory of management. In this theory, workers were considered as mere tools in the organization. They did not have the capacity to exercise any sort of creativity and were therefore irrelevant during the process of determining their career progress. This is in sharp contrast to protean attitudes towards career development. One of the major theories behind this is the human oriented management system. In this theory, employees are supposed to be involved in various decisions affecting the decisions affecting the organization especially with regard to their place in the organization. Advances in communication exert more pressure upon supervisors to involve staff through the following Communication Participation Consultation Equitability The clear difference between traditional attitudes and protean attitudes to career progress is the fact that employees need to cooperate with the superiors. It is no longer an issue of clear cut lines of authority where certain individuals have been given the mandate to make specific decisions while all others are left with no other option but to agree with what their supervisors decide about them without question. Many companies are now aware (through advances in telecommunication) that imposing career goals upon employees without due consultation will only lead to conflict and disagreements within the organization. McGregor put forward a theory called theory Y which is based on matching the needs of employees with the organization. (Burns Mc Gregor, 1978)He asserted that supervisors/ managers need employees. On the other hand, employees can be aligned to match organizational goals. He explains that employees posses the ability to make their respective organization grow. Such an approach has gained wide popularity in the field of career development. Supervisors now encourage career progress though skill development. They realize that employees can grow within the organization if they are given the right training. This may be on the job or off the job training. Employees who feel interested in a certain position are given the opportunity to stay with a certain worker and they learn what is needed for the job. They may also be taken to an external institution where they enhance their skill and are able to apply them within their respective organization. Impact of conflict, stress, group dynamics upon administrative work In the past, conflicts were viewed negatively. They were seen as something that was detrimental to the organization and were to be avoided at all costs. Conflicts that did occur were to be solved immediately and in order to allow the organization to move on to the next task. However, increased research and advances in telecommunications have exerted pressure upon mangers to deal with group dynamics in a different way. Administrators are now aware that there are cases when conflicts can be beneficial to the organization. Guetzkow and Gyr came up with the conventional type of conflict called Interpersonal conflicts. Priem and Price on the other hand came up with another type called goal oriented conflicts. This latter type of conflict has emerged as a very instrumental in administration because it is associated with the task at hand. When handled correctly, it can bring bout positive developments within the organization. However the former mentioned conflict i.e. interpersonal conflicts mostly focus on the frustrations that people have with another. Research has shown that relationship conflicts are detrimental to the organization. They put a lot of emphasis on some negative vice between the groups such as; -Building harmony in the organization -Increasing power -Eliminating threats -Strategizing individual pursuits What this means is that people will be dealing with these issues rather than with the task at hand. When administrators witness too much relationship conflicts among their employees, they tend to solve them as soon as possible because most of these issues may simply be consuming time needed to work on technical and more productive aspects of the project. Decision making is also impaired when teams focus on relation conflicts because they may spend their time promoting good will in the organization rather than operational tasks. (Scholtes, 1988) Telecommunication advancements have brought about greater emphasis on the issue of developing task related conflicts. This is because administrators are now more informed about what works and what does not work for their organization. Task related conflicts encourage greater creativity in the organization. They are an indication that all members of the team are working together towards advancements in technology. They are also an indication that leaders are not dominating their subordinates since they are able to express themselves freely. Role of ethics to administrative work It is crucial to give ethics the precedence it deserves in the workplace. This is because corporate scandals ruin companies. Advances in technology and telecommunications have brought about greater exposure to the kind of problems that can result from poor ethical issues. Indeed telecommunications have brought to the limelight classic cases of ethical failures like the Enron Company. Enron was an energy trader that was built in the mid twentieth Century. The company had seen a rapid change in the number of managers and supervisors handling employees and their ideologies and beliefs changed too. Shortly before the closure of the company, managers within the organization were too preoccupied with trying to maintain their profit margins and pleasing their partners that they ignored ethical rules and procedures. It had been revealed in one of the investigations done jut before their trail that Enron only considered ethics in theory. Their employees were required to sign a code of ethics but implementing it was simply a thing of the past. The investigation found that there was a case when Enron wanted to make a deal with a certain partner. Their code of ethics did not permit this sort of dealership. However, because of the profits that the company stood to gain after the arrangement, they decided to suspend their code of ethics during that period. It was also revealed that this same company fired a certain stock broker who had advised some employees to follow their ethical dispositions. (Douglas Harbrecht, 2006) There are many scandals in the media that have given managers a shake up. They now have to incorporate corporate ethics in all aspects of their organizations. They realize that some of these ethics is no longer something that can be treated as a text book issue alone. Administrators are now familiarizing themselves with all aspects of their organization. This is because they need to make sure that ethics rules in all spheres. Enron managers claimed that they were too busy tackling large scale problems to know the nitty-gritty details about specific aspects of their organization. But such a defense was not adequate enough to let them off the hook. Other administrators in the corporate world have quickly learnt that ethics needs to be engrained from the bottom to the top of the organization. However, this is not a simple task. It is something that takes a lot of precision and care in order to achieve. Consequently, most administrators are now making sure that they teach these virtues; Transparency Trust Honesty By putting in place these virtues, companies not only benefit through their shareholder value, but they also motivate their employees to pursue goals. (Douglas Harbrecht, 2006) Legal issues important to administrators With constant advancements in technology, most administrators need to incorporate legal aspects in all their financial, operational and marketing sections. For example, the government is constantly changing environmental laws in order to enhance greener production. In the United Kingdom, retailers and other manufacturers are only allowed to take certain amounts of waste to the landfill. Consequently, they have to come up with ways of maximizing resource efficiently. Administrators also have to equip themselves with knowledge about the legalities surrounding partnerships. Some partnerships may encourage monopoly within important sectors and these may be nullified in court. It is also illegal to secure suppliers who may be using wrong methodologies to create their products. Administrators have now become more and more ware of the fact that there are some wrong work practices and most of them are thoroughly investigating their suppliers before conducting business with them. Otherwise, companies may be sued for this. Conclusion Overly, advances in telecommunication cut across a large sphere of administrative work. First of all, leadership styles are no more involving than ever before. Leaders now consider employees as part of the organization rather than mere tools. Employees are more aware of their rights through telecommunication and therefore play a large part in career progression. Administrators have realized the negative repercussions that bad ethical conduct and ignorance about legal issues can bring to an organization. Lastly, administrators have also realized that some aspects of conflict are important in order to enhance creativity and productivity. Reference: Burns Mc Gregor (1978): Leadership, New York, NY: Harper Torchbooks Bass, B.M. & Avolio, B.J. (1995): MLQ Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire for Research; CA: Mindgarden Douglas Harbrecht (2006): Corporate Ethics: Right Makes Might; Business Week, New York Scholtes, P. (1988): The Team Handbook: How to Use Teams to Improve; Organizational Studies, 2, 419-427. Read More