The Unique Aspects of a Persons Behaviour - Essay Example

Management affiliation: Question one (a) Character traits are the unique aspects of a person’s behaviour making up their personality. Leaders are the gifted or chosen individuals whose mandate is to guide groups of people with common goals and resources in the process of achieving their set objectives. Therefore, the traits making good leaders are the aspects of leaders’ behaviours encompassing the personality, which leads to positive results in groups with resources and common goals. In the recent past, successful leaders have been adopting diverse leadership strategies to hasten their achievements. Such demonstration has been in expression as a shift from transactional to strategic leadership. Good leaders have a vision. This is an aspiration as visualized in the leader’s overall plans seeking to create measurable changes in the organization. As revealed by Price (2008), leaders who have a vision are demonstrated to be more successful at guiding their followers to achieving their goals with an example of Richard Branson at the helm of Virgin Airlines, and the late Steve Jobs of Apple Inc. The ability is hinged upon the leader’s ability to constantly compare the group’s development and his vision. This activity reduces deviation from success and diminishes the chances of failure. Primarily, they care for other people’s wellbeing, appreciating that anything done by his followers’ leaves a facelift mark. Therefore, his role is to dig out the best of the ability from the followers, ensuring that each member is successful. He does not have even an ounce of jealously from the success of his counterparts, but goes a step further to support them. Good leaders are also passionate. This means they are driven to do whatever they are engaged in and achieve the highest levels of success. A passionate leader concentrates most of his energies and attention to all the processes that will guarantee the organization, or group to achieves its set objectives. With such leaders, the chances of success for a set project are elevated since they also identify points of redundancy and deviation and root them out. In addition, such leaders are able to ensure sustained positive results once success is achieved. A good example of a passionate leader whose concentrated energy has led to achievement of success is Microsoft founder and head, Bill Gates. Furthermore, they are great team builders. This trait is essential in managing the union of talent, objectives, and resources –which is essentially, what leaders oversee. The ability to oversee a group of people, with common goals and facilitation in the way of resources is not an easy task. In addition, the leader’s ability to do this is directly related to the group’s probability of success. Teamwork is crucial as it dictates the direction each member takes. A good leader also has character. This is the summation of an individual’s moral and mental qualities. Leaders with good characters have a higher probability of success since such qualities influence them to make the best decision and formulate the right strategies geared towards success. McEwan-Adkins (2003) notes that good character assists leaders to avoid the temptation that come with such positions. A person overseeing the allocation of resources can quite easily be lured into committing crimes and behaving unethically. However, they can easily overcome such temptations and focus on organizational success. A good leader possesses key traits in managing a project to ensure its ultimate success. Such factors include monitoring and evaluation skills, organizational skills and overall managerial skills. Essentially, monitoring skills entails ensuring that all the project protocols are followed to the latter. Additionally, a leader ensures that all the stakeholders in the project work in unison, empowering them and ensuring that they own up the projects. Overall traits of a leader Question one (b) A project manager should be people-centred. This means that in the course of management, the stakeholders’ welfare should come first. The project manager is chosen to lead the process of organizing dedicated resources in benefiting the identified stakeholders. Therefore, any act they engage in should be seen to coincide with the values and objectives of these people the project seeks to assist. As such, project leaders who are people-cantered act in ways that their prospective beneficiaries – the stakeholders, will identify with. This relationship ensures the leader and his group exists in harmony and cooperates in achieving the set targets. Essentially, they should be people-oriented since their role calls for the creation and sustenance of enthusiasm as well as the cultivation of vision and mission in the group. Leaders who are not people-oriented cause a constant loss of momentum within the group since the people lack anyone to remind them of the vision and mission they are after. In addition, people-oriented project leaders find ways of boosting morale and motivating the group to working towards the project’s objectives. Otherwise, project leaders who fail to connect with the masses result in mediocre results – if any at all. Project leaders should again be people-oriented to be able to optimize the relationships between the project’s beneficiaries and outsiders. In most cases, people involved in projects find themselves in situations where the services of a good mediator or arbitrator are necessary. According to Johnasson and Ingason (2013), if the leader lacks the necessary skills in tackling the issues, and ensuring an amicable, mutually satisfying result, then things are bound to go sideways. Such management skills in project leaders ensure the project benefits the intended stakeholders as part of an even wider people-related initiative. In fact, the main objective of the project leader, as part of the head of that initiative, is to make sure that the resources and work force dedicated to the cause are used in a people-centric manner. Their diligence, consistence, and persistence are evident in their actions. In conclusion, the traits make a leader good, in terms of his ability to guide the unison of manpower, resources, and objectives, make for some interesting body of research. This is because of the diversity and influence of human beings today. However, that does not change the fact that some of the most successful leaders have been proven to exhibit some common set of trait. These are being passionate, having character, being good team builders, and being passionate. In addition, project leadership is heavily reliant on people-centric operations. The ability to influence teams to benefits the project’s beneficiaries, motivate and boost morale, led by example as well as act arbitrator or mediator on behalf are some of the traits discussed. Question two (a) A Gant chart is a horizontal bar chart often used in project management to develop a graphical design of a program that assists in planning, coordination, as well as monitoring specific tasks in a project. They can be either simple forms made on graph paper or more compound mechanical versions made by use of project management programs such as Microsoft Project or Excel. It is built on a horizontal axis meant for the total time duration of the project, fragmented into increments e.g. days, weeks, or months) and a vertical axis shows the tasks that make up the project. Gantt chart is a critical tool whose monitoring and planning activities quality in any project remains renowned. One can easily asses the budget, timeline, tasks performance, and easily note the progress. Network analysis also known as critical path method is a systematic project management procedure used for process development that outlines critical and non-critical tasks with an aim of averting time-frame problems and process holdups. The analysis is preferably suited to projects involving in many activities that interact in a compound manner, (KRISHNAN, 1995, p. 290). Question 2 (b) In Gantt chart, horizontal bars of different lengths signify the arrangements, timing, and time span for every task while the vertical bars represent the reports dates about a project. The charts demonstrate the start and finish dates of the terminal features and summary features of a project. Terminal features and summary features consist of the work analysis structure of the project. The current Gantt charts also show the reliance relationships between activities. They can be used to show existing schedule position using percent-complete shadings and a vertical line. They can be used for scheduling generic resources, so as well as their use in project management. They can also be used for developing production processes and employee rosters. Steps followed when using a network analysis involve, identifying the necessary tasks and arranging them in a sequence list. After identifying, a flowchart or a diagram indicating every task in relation to others is created. Then, the critical and non-critical relationship among tasks is identified. The probable completion or finishing time for every task is determined. Lastly, substitutions for the most critical paths are located. By use of these steps, network analysis gauges the longest path of setting activities to reasonable endpoints or to the end of the project. It also assists in analysing the earliest and latest time each activity can commence and finish without making the project longer. It, therefore, helps in identifying which projects are critical and which ones are not. Advantages of Gantt bars include; creation of a picture of complexity by use of a diagram or charts that expresses complex ideas and thoughts into a much clearer and comprehensible way. It also helps in clarification by compressing down multiple tasks into a single document. It helps the parties involved to better understand the project and utilize their roles. It also assists in communication by offering a clear visual updates about the projects, which help team members had better understand the project’s progress. It also works as an external motivator by enabling teams to focus work at the beginning of a task timeline or at its end. Managers use it for coordination by enabling them to arrange events and minimize the likelihood of overloading the members. It also offers flexibility by its ability to issue new charts as the project evolves; hence, allowing one to respond to unforeseen changes to project timeline. Its disadvantages are diverse. The charts can become extremely complex making it much harder to understand. At times, it results in companies obtaining skilled managers from the outside in order to manage it. Since the size of the bar does not indicate the amount of work, one can, therefore, not tell what level of resources can be required to complete the tasks. The charts also require often updating since things change at different levels; therefore, one must have the ability to easily update it. It is also tough for the audience to view because the programs that generate them only enable segment viewing, (BIDGOLI, 2004, p. 116). Advantages of network analysis include aiding it in reducing the duration needed to complete a project due to its ability to identify the shortest yet critical path. It also helps in reducing project costs. Lesser time used to complete the projects reduces the resources allocation costs. It also helps improve the project efficiency by enabling managers select the most suitable path to be taken in order to carry out the project. It reveals the dependencies within an organization by identifying the relationships between tasks. It also assists in organizing enormous projects due to its ability to estimate and analyse the given tasks. It also enables managers to monitor, plan and govern projects. It is usually easy for managers to oversee the project since the network analysis provides them with what tasks should be ongoing at what time and by whom. It also helps save time by enabling managers identify tasks that can be carried out simultaneously. It also assist in decision making by providing a clear view of relationships among tasks, hence, helping the managers make sound decisions on which path to take. However, it is extremely difficult to draw diagrams for larger projects because larger projects involve diagrams that are more complex. There is also great confusion when tackling a complex project in that it proves hard to understand it. In addition, resource allocation is not accounted for and, therefore, managers have to manually allocate it. It does not help in organizing personnel to the specific tasks; therefore, the managers have to do it themselves. Where complex projects are involved, it is usually hard to precisely know the time required to complete it. It is not always be a guarantee that using network analysis will be efficient; sometimes it can just refuse to work, (SCHWALBLE, 2010, p. 243). 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