The Aspects of Management - Coursework Example

Topic:  MANAGEMENT Pages:  7 Reference: 8 Table of Contents Anonymili, (No , Can You Manage Being A Manager? (How do you Become an Effective Manager?), retrieved November 27, 2008, from http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/discussion/how-do-you-become-an-effective-manager/1047468/ 7 Introduction: Managers play a very important role in weaving the success story of an organisation or a nation. It takes a lot of hard and sincere efforts to become an effective manager. Managing people or leading a team is more of an art than science. No amount of B-school training can possibly make someone a good manager. It is only through experience and time that one emerges to be an effective leader and manager. One of the most important traits looked for in a good manager is leadership skill. It is through conscious efforts that one picks up and develops these sorts of skills. No one is a born leader or a manager. These skills are learnt while working and interacting with different types of people. The reason why it is important for a manager to develop leadership qualities is that his primary job is to manage people and lead them in a way so as to allow them to reach their highest potential. The most important thing that any manager needs to keep in mind is ‘leading by example’. He should be setting examples for the rest of his team to follow. It has been observed that good managers don’t expect their employees to do as they say rather do as they do. If an employee or team member is expected to display traits of hard work, integrity and team spirit, the manager should also ideally demonstrate that he works hard, is a man of integrity and is a strong team player. Leadership skills include strength and confidence in one self. Only when one is confident about his own and his team’s abilities can he manage well. A clear vision helps managers to work and make work the entire team. Great leaders through ages have shown that it helps to give credit where it is due. This helps boost the self esteem of the worthy employees and motivate them to work even harder. (Anonymili, n.d.) Leadership skill is thus identified as one of the most needed qualities of a good manager. There are however multiple approaches to the concept of leadership. According to traditional theories, leadership skills are to be concentrated in one single person at the top of the team. The broad assumption made here is that this one leader has all the strengths and qualities required from that of a leader. However in recent times, it has been argued that no one person can be permanent leader because in that case he will cease to be an ordinary team member and interaction and team spirit would break down. Thus it would make more sense if members of the team provide occasional leadership in different areas according to their skills and competencies. (Jarvis, C., `B.O.L.A , n.d.) How the modern theories of leadership challenge the traditional theories of leadership? Peter Northouse (2001) defines leadership as course of action whereby one individual influences his team members to achieve a common goal. (Hall J. et al, n.d.) Through research and studies academic theories evolve to encompass the various aspects of a subject matter and eventually the older theories are challenged by the newer ones. Under this section we will look into the depths of the different theories of leadership in a chronological manner. The earliest of all theories was the Great Man theory. According to this theory certain people are born with the leadership skills and qualities and hence leadership requires no outer resource. (Great Man Theory, n.d.) The Great Man theory upholds leaders as heroic and mythic. At the time when this theory came into existence, leadership predominantly was thought of as a male quality. The next theory that was devised is Trait theory. According to this, people are born with inherited characteristic traits that are particularly suited to leadership. These people naturally go on to become influential leaders of the nation or business. (Stogdill, R.M., 1974) According to McCall and Lombardo (1983) the four main traits of a leader are emotional stability and composure, admitting to faults and errors, excellent interpersonal skills and intellectual breadth. (McCall, M.W. Jr. and Lombardo, M.M., 1983) The modern theories of leadership include behavioral theory, participative leadership, situational leadership, contingency theories, transactional leadership and transformational leadership. The newer and more advanced theories of leadership reject the primary assumption made by the traditional theories of leadership like Great Man or Trait. According to these theories leaders are made and not born. (Wagner K.V., n.d.) This is the major challenge posed by the modern theories to the traditional ones. Modern thinkers believe leadership does not require inborn traits or capabilities. Rather they take into account what leaders actually do. This opened the floodgates to leadership development. Early research on leadership was based purely on psychometric assessment and the sole attention was put on discovering the common traits in them. Behavioral theory itself was a big leap from the Trait theory. It was the first one to challenge the earlier theories. (Behavioral Theory, n.d.) The other theories of leadership like Participative, Contingency, Situational, Transitional and Transformational are all recently developed theories. These theories capture the various aspects of leadership. The modern theories were born after much critical and in depth research on the desired skills in a leader, functional environment of a leader and team dynamics. How managers with different leadership styles motivate their teams? Different leaders have different styles of leadership. Each on has its own way of doing things or getting things done. Some qualities are inherent in people, while some need to be acquired over time. To begin the discussion, leadership styles can be broadly classified under three heads viz, autocratic leader, laissez-faire leader and democratic leader. Autocratic leadership entails one person’s domination over the entire team using unilateralism. This sort of leadership is not readily accepted by people and such leaders often have to get the work done by continual pressure and direction. Such an authoritarian approach does not always bring about the best in a team. This leadership style is much in cohesion with the traditional theories of leadership. The Laissez Faire manger or leader on the other hand exercises very little control over his team members. Team members are left on their own to understand their roles and work in coherence and peace. This approach gives the team members or employees somewhat decision making power and thus, a direction and motivation in work. Democratic leader is one who makes decisions only after consulting his team, whilst still maintaining control of the group. Similar to Laissez Faire, under democratic leadership, team members are endowed with responsibilities and decision making power. This leaves the employees with a sense of ownership and motivation. Be it autocratic, laissez faire or democratic form of leadership, all does not fit into all situations. Autocratic leadership is called for in situations of crisis. At times when urgent decision is to be made or urgent action is to be taken, autocratic leaders are the best fit. However at most of the other occasions it is laissez faire or democratic style of leadership that suits the most. Laissez faire or democratic leadership bears fruit only when the team comprises highly motivated and skilled people. Once a team has gained the momentum and is equipped to work on its own, laissez faire and democratic leaders step back and watch their team perform. However in the name of ownership of work and responsibility, leaders should not loose sight of the fact that they are the people who are ultimately responsible for performance. Hence timely interaction with the team and motivation are required. In the current times it is the democratic form of leadership which is most desired. A democratic leader is well familiar with every member of the team and strives to leverage the strong points of every individual. He motivates his team by empowering them to direct themselves, and guides them with a loose reign. However it has been observed that people are mostly familiar with autocratic form of leadership and have less trouble adopting the same. In certain situations employees themselves prefer autocratic leaders over democratic or laissez faire. (Jarvis, C., `B.O.L.A , n.d.) Conclusion: Though there are many industry leaders and scholars who believe that leadership and management are two entirely different things, but real time analysis will show that the two domains have merged into one another. For being a good manager one needs to be a good leader. However to be effective, leaders or managers need to be flexible in adopting leadership styles in accordance with the changing business scenario and situations. Reference: Anonymili, (No Date), Can You Manage Being A Manager? (How do you Become an Effective Manager?), retrieved November 27, 2008, from http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/discussion/how-do-you-become-an-effective-manager/1047468/ Behavioral Theory, (No Date), retrieved November 27, 2008, from http://changingminds.org/disciplines/leadership/theories/behavioral_theory.htm Great Man Theory, (No Date), retrieved November 27, 2008, from http://changingminds.org/disciplines/leadership/theories/great_man_theory.htm Hall J. et al, (No Date), Transformational Leadership: The Transformation of Managers and Associates, retrieved November 27, 2008, from http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/HR020 JARVIS, C., `B.O.L.A , (No Date), Brunel University College, retrieved November 27, 2008, from http://wwwbs.wlihe.ac.uk/~jarvis/bola/communications/effective.html McCall, M.W. Jr. and Lombardo, M.M., (1983), Off the track: Why and how successful executives get derailed. Greensboro, NC: Centre for Creative Leadership, retrieved November 27, 2008. Stogdill, R.M., (1974), Handbook of leadership: A survey of the literature, New York: Free Press, retrieved November 27, 2008. Wagner K.V., (No Date), Leadership Theories, retrieved November 27, 2008, from http://psychology.about.com/od/leadership/p/leadtheories.htm Read More