Leadership and Motivation - Assignment Example

Leadership is a management activity which entails the act of providing a direction to others by leading and directing them on the appropriate courses of actions to take. Leadership involves the process of integration the relevant resources into developing a coherent and organized environments that facilitates the implementation of an organization’s objective actions. Therefore, leadership is concerned with the process of influencing the human resource and designing situations that will enable efficient performance of duties within an organization.

This process of leading in social setting requires that the leader possess the requisite skills and technical information that will facilitate efficient delivery of his/her duties. In the context of leadership and human resource, one of the main areas is concerning employee motivation. Motivation is a procedural development on the attitude of an employee that helps him/her to achieve the expected objectives. Motivation is one of the basic functions of a leader. As a leader, one should be able to influence the employees to work towards achieving the objectives of a company.

In case of any problem, a leader should employ his leadership skills in resolving the subject situation. A leader should possess good communication skills that will facilitate the flow of information to the subordinates. In addition, a leader should also posses the requisite interpersonal skills that will help him/her to hold productive discussion concerning any issue under consideration (Vroom and Yetton 56). Echo Electronics Question 1 Actions that Paul could have taken to prevent the problem i.

Ensure proper design of the new process and equipment by the process engineer. Before Paul accepted the proposal by the production engineer, He should have requested the engineer to provide detailed reports concerning the expected engineering change. As the head of the production department, Paul should have initiated the process of carrying out a feasibility study of the proposed project. He should have directed the concerned persons in the departments like the economists, marketers and the engineers to come up with a comprehensive feasibility study that depicts whether the change would be profitable.

This feasibility study would have helped in detection of hitches that were to be experienced once the process was running. Feasibility study would have produced sample products from pilot plants and these products would have been taken to the customers for their opinions. Therefore, a proper feasibility study would have ensured optimization of all the elements involved in the change of process lines. ii. Instituted training programs for operation employees As the head of the production department, Paul would have considered providing his subordinate operators with the requisite training before the new process was installed.

One of the technical hitches arose from the competence of operators to work with the new systems. Therefore, Paul should have considered approaching the human resource department and arranging for technical trainings of the production operators. iii. Involve the Quality Assurance Department For successful production, all the relevant departments should work hand in hand during production. Therefore, Paul should have acquired the relevant information from the quality control department concerning the expected product quality.

As the production manager, Paul should have fully incorporated total quality management into the new system to ensure product conformity to the expected standards. Question 2 Actions that will enable Paul to reverse the production situation I. Embark on effective training and motivation of employees During the introduction of a change within any working environment, the people who are most likely to be affected are the employees. Any change, especially a technical one may strain employee efforts at work.

Therefore, Paul should embark on directing the relevant department to provide the required training to the operators. II. Provide Incentives to subordinates One of the human resource problem that ensued upon the introduction of the new process system is to provide incentives to the employees hence increasing motivation and prevent employees turn-over. A higher motivation level, especially to the production line operators will encourage them to accept the new production system, hence increasing productivity. III. Integrate Total Quality Management into the production line Since defects have been detected in the process line, Paul should capitalize on the services provided by the quality management department.

Together with the production and design engineers, the quality managers should identify the cause of the defects and modify the process to correct the situation. Quality assurance should then be extended to the marketing department to assure consumers of the improved quality of the new products. Being the production manager, Paul will co-ordinate the flow of quality information concerning the corrective measures taken and the quality standards achieved to the marketing department. Alvis Corporation Question 1 Was the two decisions suitable for group discussion according to Vroom-Yetton model The decision making process entails the adoption of the appropriate mechanism that will yield the optimal solution based on the situation under consideration.

The appropriate mechanism to adopt depends on factors which include, the quality of decision required, the time available and the subordinates’ commitment to participation. In this context and with respect to the principles advocated for by Vroom-Yetton model, both the decisions were not worth to be made in a group. a. Decision Quality In the first place, the decision concerning the aspect of vacation was not important to the company. In addition, employees would not propose the best incentive technique since they would settle for what works best for them, not for the company’s objectives.

Therefore the decisions do not meet the required quality. b. Employees’ Commitment In the second case, the employees were not committed to discuss the issues. The workers were not ready to embrace the decision of the production levels. In addition, the workers were not ready to reach an agreement concerning the criteria to be adopted in selecting the best vocation candidate. Therefore, these decisions do not meet the required level of subordinated commitment, hence not suitable for group deliberation. c. There was not enough time The time available to make the decision was minimal.

Kathy was in another meeting hence she could not get enough time to involve the teams in intensive collaborative decision making process. Therefore, there was not enough time and the little time available was wasted by the subordinates and failed to reach an agreement. Question 2 Mistakes made by using participation 1. The subordinates were not commited Kathy made a mistake of presenting uncommitted subordinates to participate in the decision making process. If the workers were committed, they would have come up with numerous alternatives concerning the productivity incentives.

However, they were not willing to deliberate on the issue of the proposed incentive program. 2. They were left alone to make the decision Another mistake made is to leave the subordinates without a leader’s direction in the decision making process. Without a leader figure in a group, the members would not reach an agreement due to opinion conflicts among themselves. Therefore, Kathy should have been present to ensure organized expression of diverse opinions among the group members. Question 3 Were the two decisions appropriate?

These were minor decisions within the human resource and the production departments of Alvis Company. The efficient incentive program that can work best for the company should be selected by the knowledgeable manager who is thoroughly acquainted with the available incentive programs. Moreover, the issue of vacation is insignificant with respect to the overall objectives of the company. Therefore, these decisions were not substantial enough to warrant participative decision making. Work Cited Vroom, Harold and Yetton, Philip.

Leadership and decision-making. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Pre, 2009. Print.