The Effects of Management Style on Employee Performance - Essay Example

The Effects of Management Style on Employee Performance Grade (October 28, The Effects of Management Style on Employee Performance Introduction a. Briefly describe the organization The H.M. Richards is a USA-based high quality furniture manufacturing company, which specializes in the manufacture of home furniture such as sofa and cozy seats, in addition to offering (Mississippi.org, 2015). The company was founded in 1997 with its headquarters in Baldwyn, Mississippi, but has since then continued to expand its operations to different other locations both in the USA and also in Canada (Seid, 2012). In addition to the furniture manufacture, the company also provides frames, springs, cushions and mattresses, and also foam padding (Seid, 2012). The company also partners with home-owning and real estate companies to manufacture for them and their home customers high quality and durable furniture. The company retails its furniture from its main factory locations as well as through other furniture and department stores (Mississippi.org, 2015). The company has a 900,000-square foot factory facility in Guntown Mississippi that acts as its major furniture manufacturing center, with a total of 977 employees (Mississippi.org, 2015). However, the company also has other factories and furniture manufacturing facilities in different other locations. The sale of the high quality upholstery furniture produced by H.M. Richards is achieved through 100 major furniture and departmental stores retailers that are distributed throughout the USA and Canada (Seid, 2012). The company has been able to target and acquire a large share of the high-end furniture customers, enabling the company to increase its revenue to over $1 billion annually. The company continues to expand, with its recent expansion being a corporate investment in another location in Mississippi, worth $8 million, and estimated to create 500 more jobs (Mississippi.org, 2015). b. Statement of Problem Leadership style of management is essential in defining both the direction and the performance of an organization. However, the corporate world is full of one-directional leaders who center the whole of decision-making on them alone (Uchenwamgbe, 2013). Such leaders are authoritarian, and will only consult with the top management at best, while having the administration of the organization centered on them only. Such leaders do not invite the participation of subordinates, but rather requires them to follow orders. Nevertheless, it is important to realize that the need to have subordinates involved in the organizational decision making is not a passing fancy (Mullins, 2007). Employee participation is rooted deep in the culture of successful organizations, and no doubt continues to drive them. The other major problem affecting the corporate world leadership is the lack of authenticity of the leaders in different leadership and management capacities. Thus, such leaders fail to define their own style of leadership, rather trying to emulate and copy the leadership strategies of other notable leaders. In most cases, such copied leadership styles lack merit, while such leaders lacks the competency to apply the copied leadership styles to achieve the set goals and targets of the organizations (Uchenwamgbe, 2013). Once this happens, the realization of the set organizational goals, as well as giving the appropriate direction and guidance to the employees is thrown into disarray. Therefore, there is a need to understand the roles that leadership styles play in steering success in corporate organizations. Purpose of Research The purpose of this research is therefore to investigate the effect of management/leadership style on employee performance at H.M. Richards Inc. Significance of Research The USA furniture market is highly dominated by furniture importation from China (Seid, 2012). Therefore, most of the locally-base furniture companies rarely have a chance of success at the corporate, upholstery and high-end consumer furniture market, since these markets mostly focus on importations. However, H.M. Richards Inc has emerged with a new business model that has seen the company grow from strength to strength in the last almost two decades. The fact that the company has succeeded in capturing and retaining a large market share of the corporate, upholstery and high-end consumer furniture market means that there is something the company is able to do, which many other companies are not. The success of an organization solely depends on its leadership and workforce. Therefore, there must be a unique relationship between the management/leadership of the company and its employees. Further, the success of the company in such an exclusive market niche means that there must be some aspect of excellence with its workforce, which enables the company to capture and retain customer loyalty in the most unlikely and exclusive market niche in the furniture industry. Finally, most furniture businesses build and wait for customers. However, H.M. Richards Inc has a very unique business model, in that the company builds to order; thus does not build and wait for customers to come and buy, since every piece of furniture sitting in its warehouses has been sold (Seid, 2012). Simply put therefore, the corporate world has a lot to learn from the H.M. Richards Inc model and management style. This therefore necessitates the study of how the management/leadership style of H.M. Richards Inc. has impacted on its employee performance, to arrive at such levels of success. The findings of the study will then be very useful for other organizations that might seek to adopt a similar leadership/management strategy, or at least a similar level of success. The study is also important, because it will help determine if the H.M. Richards Inc. model is adaptable and applicable to other business situations, to determine the extent to which it can be replicated in the corporate world. c. Literature Review The leadership style within an organization does not only determine the level of organizational performance, but also the extent to which lower-level and subordinate employees are involved in the decision-making process of the organization (Mullins, 2007). Thus, organizations that have less subordinate involvement and have their decision-making restricted to the top management level tend to have bossy leaders, who do not believe in the bottom-up concept of business decision making (Uchenwamgbe, 2013). Such organizations are highly characterized by low efficiency, considering the fact that the lower-level employees are not involved in defining the overall business strategy that can allow an organization to achieve high efficiency. The involvement of all individuals within an organization helps to enhance their mental and emotional involvement in the organizational processes, as well as motivate the individuals to take responsibility for their actions. This in turn drives an organization towards the path of success. Leadership is the concept of establishing direction, aligning people and motivating and inspiring the selected people to work towards the set targets and goals of an organization (Uchenwamgbe, 2013). Thus, effective leadership is highly concerned with people and very less with tasks, because it focuses on the future of the organization built on the foundation of the existing people, even when the tasks might keep changing. Therefore, leaders must often apply the relevant styles and skills to inspire personnel to achieve the set goals, while at the same time discovering solutions and managing change. The efficient achievement of set organizational objectives is done by a workforce that is inspired, motivated and excited to share in the goals, vision and passion of their leader (Mullins, 2007). On the other hand, good leaders feel comfortable sharing their vision with the employees and the entire organizational workforce, because they trust that the workforce is the engine through which the organization moves ahead. Therefore, such leaders do not have problems using their time, education, experience, skills and training to help their subordinates improve (Uchenwamgbe, 2013). The most effective leaders are continually working towards improving their skills and styles of leadership, as well as improving their subordinates’ competency. Further, good leaders always work towards bringing their workforce closer to reality, by working on a day-to-day plan of enhancing their performance, not through issuing orders, but through inspiring them to be better each day. Therefore, managers and organizational leaders cannot just rely on their technical skills to manage their workforce effectively. The leaders must strive to better their skills ad competency, and at the same time seeking to impart such competencies on their employees. In order to build successful businesses in the corporate world, organizational managers and leaders must find a balance between remaining the head of their organization and becoming team members in their organizational teams (Uchenwamgbe, 2013). Leaders who are distant from their organizational teams will not often understand their needs or even be able to inspire and motivate them when organizational challenges arises that may threaten the success of the organization. Therefore, organizational leaders should only aim at creating harmony with their workforce, and thus shape the whole workforce as a single team unit. Thus, achieving organizational success in the corporate world does not only require managers, but also managers who are leaders. However, it is very important to note that no leadership or management qualities are the ultimate solution to the corporate business challenges (Mullins, 2007). Therefore, applying either management or leadership alone is not enough to propel a corporate organization to the greatest heights of success. It is therefore incumbent upon a corporate manager to combine management skills with leadership techniques, to be able to enjoy the benefits of both worlds (Uchenwamgbe, 2013). 3. Proposed Methods: a. Describe the participants, procedures, materials A qualitative research design will be adopted for this study, where the necessary data from the study will be collected through qualitative research design tools such as interviews, observation and questionnaires. A qualitative research design is appropriate for this nature of study, because it allows for an in-depth investigation of a study phenomena. Additionally, a qualitative research study design is appropriate for this study, because e it allows for studying contemporary phenomena within a real-life context. Thus, observation will be used as a data collection tool for collecting real-life employee performance data. b. Data collection Data collection will be done severaly in this study. The 100 participants will be divided into two categories. Interview data collection technique will be used to collect data from 30 employees who will be interviewed through a face-to-face interview. Data from the other 70 employees will be collected through questionnaires, which will be handed to the employees to fill-in and then collected back once they have been filled-in. observation will be applied to collect data on all the visible employees. Sampling The total 977 employees will be used as the study population from which the sample will be selected. The participants in this study will be the employees of H.M. Richards Inc. The study will seek to recruit 100 current employees of the organization as the study participants. The study will apply random sampling technique to select the participants who will form the 100 study sample participants. Random, sampling as a sample selection strategy helps to ensure that all participants have been given an equal opportunity to participate in the study. A sample of 100 employees is adequate to give varied data that can be both sufficient and credible for inference to the whole population. Analysis Correlation and regression techniques will be applied as the data analysis techniques. The correlation and regression data analysis techniques provide information on how different variables are related, as well as the strength of such relationships. c. Study Variables The dependent variable in this study is the employee performance. On the other hand, the independent variable is the management/leadership style. Qualitative data will be collected on how the H.M. Richards Inc management/leadership style has impacted on H.M. Richards Inc employee performance. 4. Proposed Results: Provide anticipated results 63% of the employees reported that the H.M. Richards Inc management/leadership style had strongly impacted on their performance, 28% reported that their performance had a moderate influence from leadership/management style, while the rest 9% reported slight performance influence by the H.M. Richards Inc. leadership/management style. Among the 63% that were influenced by the H.M. Richards Inc management/leadership style, 42% cited employee inspiration and motivation as the most influential leadership trait, while 36% cited involvement in decision-making as the most influential leadership trait. On the other hand, the rest of 22% cited leadership authenticity, direct social interaction and commitment to set goals as the most influential leadership/management traits. 5. Discussion The leadership/management style of H.M. Richards has an effect on the employee performance. The most visible ways in which the management/leadership style of the organization influenced employees was through employee inspiration and motivation. Additionally, participation in decision making was also cited as another strong influence on the employees’ performance. Further, direct leadership/management socialization with the employees, leadership authenticity and leadership commitment in pursuit of the set organization goals were the other leadership traits that influenced the employee performance at H.M. Richards. However, the limitation associated with the study is that it was not immediately possible to determine what percentage of the employees’ performance was influenced by the leadership/management styles, and what percentage was accounted for by other organizational reward factors such as competitive salaries and benefits. Thus, it is suggested that a further study should be undertaken, in order to establish if leadership/management style or organizational rewards system is the most influential factor in employees’ performance. References Mississippi.org (June 8, 2015). H.M. Richards Launching Major Expansion in Guntown, Miss. Web. November 1, 2015. https://www.mississippi.org/general/h-m-richards/ Mullins, L. (2007). Management and Organizational Behaviour, (8th Edition), New York: Prentice. Seid, D. (October 6, 2012). H.M. Richards continues furniture growth mode. Daily Journal. Web. November 1, 2015.http://djournal.com/news/h-m-richards-continues-furniture-growth-mode/ Uchenwamgbe, B. P. (2013). Effects of Leadership Style on Organizational Performance in Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) in Nigeria. European Journal of Business and Management 5(23), 53-73. Read More