Scheins Three Cultures of Management, Kouzes and Micos Domain Theory - Coursework Example

SCHEIN’S THREE CULTURES OF MANAGEMENT AND KOUZES AND MICO’S DOMAIN THEORY Leadership and management have been used interchangeably in various organizations to mean the ways individual organizations are run, operated and governed. Leadership and/or management have comprised fundamental parts of organizations since they are the mechanisms that assist in determination of organizational cultures, principles, objectives, goals and policies. Most managements and organizational leaderships have greatly relied on theories in structuring ways and systems in which the particular organizations are driven. The learned theories have then been set into practice and have resulted to positive success as well as negatives failures depending on the individual theories and the ways they get implemented. Among the most renowned and well governing theories are the Schein’s Three Cultures of Management and Kouzes and Mico’s Domain Theory. The two theories exhibit particular similarities concerning the rightful proposals of how the managerial and leadership issues ought to be handled to achieve success of the individual organizations. However, the two theories also have some points of differences that call for careful analysis of the theories by an individual consulting leader before finalizing on particular decisions. Schein’s Three Cultures of Management According to Schein (1996, p.3), a typical organization has to be founded on the basis of three cultures of management including the operator, engineering and executive cultures of management. These cultures have to been incorporated and made to be dependent on each other in order to attain a more comprehensive and complete organizational management. The success or failure of the individual organization then depends on the manner in which the three cultures of management are linked up and run (Schein1996, p.3). The operator culture is highly dependent on human interaction and relation in an organizational setup. As viewed by Schein (1996, p. 13), the operator culture ensures effective communication, collaboration and trust among workers and even bringing the individual workers together to strike an efficient and effective teamwork. Schein (1996, p. 13) further clarifies that operator culture within organizations enable and empower individual workers opportunities to innovate ideas that are fundamental to survival of the individual organization. In that respect principles of operator culture allows individual workers to operate in disregard to rules set to run particular organizations when certain conditions prevail. While operating complex activities and unanticipated occurrences, operator culture brings workers together by creating interdependency to formulate adaptable strategies for teamwork to accomplish the impending task. Schein (1996, p.13) however indicates that operator culture is often met with rules especially in the case of unpredictable conditions. Schein (1996, p.13) points out that the simmering problem with the operators is that they understand well that for job to be well done then they must involve innovation and personal skills in solving problems as not set out in the rules. However, this becomes difficult due to lack of incentive or managerial support defined to compensate such efforts. The result of such speculations is operators’ subversion of the true and more practical strategies to rely on the set rules. In the observation of Schein (1996, p.15), executive culture mainly applies to the individual CEOs who get promoted to the rank after passing through other levels of organizational management. The executive culture is mainly focused on the maintaining and ensuring adaptable financial health of the individual organization. As outlined by Schein (1996:13), there occurs difference in role between the CEO appointed from among the founders or family heading the organization and the promoted CEO. The former type of CEO exercises broader focus and assumptions in the organization while the later type of CEO focuses mostly on the financial performance of the organization. Since promoted CEOs have high experiences while they rise up the hierarchy with longitudinal increase in responsibility, it becomes difficult for them to manage every level of organizational operation and therefore needs to set strategic information systems (Schein1996, p. 13). Doing this enables executives to ensure maximum accountability in every aspect of their operation. The executive culture also makes individual promoted executives to become impersonal since they handle broader organizations and departmental managers who exhibit similar competence. The executives thus need to develop wide and diverged view of circumstances and be ready to accommodate other manager’s views. The reasons why executives have to set information system is the difficulty in recognizing as well as managing all employees and still attend to office duties. Engineering culture on the other hand is an aspect of management mandated with designing and setting up of machines and items in ways that they ensure efficiency, safety and elegance of human performance. Engineers design things with organizations to make operations more automatic with minimal need of human operation. Engineers design objects that capable of performing various production activities within the organization yet with minimum threats on the individual human beings operating the gadget. In a nutshell, Schein (1996, p. 14) postulates that engineering culture of organizations design things that less dependent on human operation. Engineering culture is also very impersonal and it involves shared ideas with other practitioners in other organizations and countries. Kouzes and Mico’s Domain Theory Domain theory is basically a school of thought developed to help in analyzing and studying of leadership and managerial structure in the Human Service Organizations (HSO) including public schools, hospitals, police department among others. According to Kouzes and Mico (1979, p. 456), in order to ensure effectiveness, the domain theory divides HSO into three distinctive domains. The three component domains include the policy domain, service and management domains. As disclosed by Kouzes and Mico (1979, p. 456), the three domains are independent on each other as marked within different principles, governance, measures of success and structural arrangements. Any interaction of the three main domains of the HSO leads to disjunction and dysfunction of the particular organization. The Policy Domain defines the organizational level where rules and policies destined to run an HSO get formulated. The policy domain of an HSO is run by elected or appointed community representatives who function in the board of directors. According to Kouzes and Mico (1979, p. 457), an effective policy domain is one that is run by the legitimacy and concrete consent of the subjects. The policies and decisions made at this level involve negotiations, member contributions, arguments and eventually voting by the board members. The effectiveness of the policy domain is determined in terms of justice, impartiality and fairness in policy making. The policy domain mainly responds to the demanding political changes. The policy domain also operates on particular set and clearly specified goals. The management domain other extreme is run by technocratic and bureaucratic form of leadership where decisions are made in hierarchical manner. Kouzes and Mico (1979, p. 457) liken the management domain of HSO to the business and industries. The management domain holds on the linear procedure in decision making and assumes bureaucracy as it the rightful structure defining it nature. The successes of management domain are measured by rationalization of organization and acceptance of cost efficiency (Kouzes & Mico, 1979, p. 457)). The management domain is sensitive to respond to the evolving technological and economic changes. Service domain on one end involves professional service providers in the HSO and who have expertise to satisfy clients’ desires and demands. Kouzes and Mico (1979, p. 457) confirm that service domain is governed by principles of self regulation and autonomy. The effectiveness of the service domain is measured in terms of professional standards and quality of care. The service domain usually responds to changes in culture. Similarities between Schein’s Three Cultures of Management and Kouzes and Mico’s Domain Theory The Schein’s three cultures of management, and the Kouzes’ and Mico’s Domain theory exhibit particular similarities. To begin with, the Schein’s operator culture of management stresses a lot on the need for collaboration and communication as well as trust. These elements are regarded of great importance and significance for success of an organization. The same applies to the policy domain of the domain theory. The policy domain requires the participation of particular elected or appointed community representatives who contribute in the decision making process concerning how an organization should be run. The two theories seem to promote transparency and socialization among individuals in the same organization thus promoting harmony and understanding. The executive culture of management proposed by Schein is also similar to the management domain of the domain theory. The executive culture concentrates more on the financial performance and progress of the individual organization. This also applies to the management domain that responds to economic issues concerning an organization. Just as executive culture controls and becomes accountable of the operations in the organization, so does the management domain. The service domain also tends to be similar to the operator culture in that both have capabilities and opportunities for innovation to improve their productivity. Service domain enjoys almost open relation with the individual client and is always at liberty to change the modalities of service delivery to fit the standing demand of the client. The operators are also allowed chance to function out of the set rule when confronted with challenging situations that require extra creativity. Furthermore, policy domain of the domain theory and the executive culture of management are both impersonal in that they absolutely rely on other individuals with the organization to attain the maximum productivity. The policy domain relies on the board of directors as executives rely on departmental managers and other workers. Significance of the Theories on My Individual Understanding As a primary school teacher, the two theories; Schein’s Three Cultures of Management and Kouzes and Mico’s Domain theory have enabled me to understand and even have an explanation to certain behaviors that occur among fellow teachers. While in the school, the headmaster have been very careful in handling monetary issues making sure that single cent is lost or misused. Every monetary transaction made by the school finance clerk has to be recorded and properly accounted for before being presented to the head teacher. Such conducts by the head teacher have been surprises to me creating wonders over such strictness exhibited by the head teacher. From the concepts of the executive culture of management, I have been able to realize that all along the head teacher was acting rightfully since his laxity could cause him troubles due to lack of accountability. The same head teacher kept insisting that individual teachers report to him every time of entering the school compound and also at the time of leaving for home. Such demand by the head teacher seemed hectic to my consciousness viewing the directives as unnecessary bureaucracy that should be abolished from the societies. After having read about the executive culture of management, I begun to appreciate the efforts by the head teacher since he was exercising maximum accountability as an organizational leader, and this kind of interaction also provided avenue for speculating class registers to know the total population of students. The strategy also helped the particular head teacher track the performance of the fellow teachers. It has also been common for teachers to conduct in depth consultations and develop close and more trusted relationships. All these aspects have been considering them on very lighter notes without discerning exactly the forces behind such prevalent relations. After reading the operator culture of management, I begun to understand the secrete reasons and fundamentals of such relationships. I realized that teachers just like operators are in continuous such for more knowledge to enable them improve and maximize on their performance. I was also worried about some teachers who read and did excessive research but after reading the operator culture, I noticed that the individuals wanted to boost their levels of creativity and innovation. On the same note, some teachers also taught effortlessly by just focusing on the approved syllabus without exposing the individual learner to the events in the external world. After going through the operator culture of management, I realized that the teachers restricted their teaching due to the fact they would not get any incentive or managerial appreciation. My time as teacher has been disturbed by activities and roles performed by certain area villagers who occasionally come to school and get offered special space where they hold meeting with the head teacher. The learning about the policy domain theory has furnished by understanding of the constituent of the occasional meeting and the possible discussion likely to be involved. I learnt that the villagers have been community representatives elected by majority to formulate and review policies for running the school. As a primary school teacher I have observed and concluded as teachers’ nature to express certain closeness and seemingly strong control of the individual students. Individual teachers have viewed themselves as superior in their individual teachings believing that they have much understanding and ability to regulate and satisfy student’s desires and demands. After reading the concepts about the service domain of the domain theory, I began to understand the forces behind such attributes among the teachers. Teachers have long wanted and exercised self regulation and autonomy on the way they teach their various subjects. Possible Insights Gathered From the Theories The theories are very informative, instructional and directional to any serious leader who aims at achieving the highest productivity of the organization. As a primary school teacher, my leader can learn the basic social systems depicted in the domain theory to ensure separation roles and duties among the various domain levels of management. More so, the head teacher should learn to separate the service domain from the policy and management domain to allow professional teachers committed to teaching deliver to the maximum of their capabilities. Such a strategy will help in reducing workload allotted to particular staff members. The head teacher should ensure more social system by conforming to the operator culture to encourage interdependence and integration among individual teachers. Such step will ease the process of solving perceived technical problems faced by individual teachers. Furthermore, the head teacher being an executive will be able to realize the fundamentals of creating proper communication system to limit the movement of teachers into head office to report their arrivals and departure. The head teacher with the help of the policy domain should set clear and specific goals to be achieved by school participants at the end of every year (Ellstrom, 1983, p. 233) References CARR, C. S., & FULMER, C. L. (2004). Educational leadership: knowing the way, showing the way, going the way. Lanham, Md, Scarecrow Education. ELLSTROM, P. 1983. Four faces of educational organization. Available: http://www.academia-research.com/filecache/instr/6/657330_6.pdf. (29 March 2012). 231-241 HODGKINSON, C. (1991). Educational leadership: the moral art. Albany, N.Y., State University of New York Press. KOUZES, J. & MICO, P. 1979. Domain theory: An introduction to organizational behavior in human service organizations. Available: http://www.academia-research.com/filecache/instr/2/657330_2.pdf. (29 March 2012). SCHEERENS, J. 1997. Models of co-ordination in education organizations. Available: http://www.academia-research.com/filecache/instr/4/657330_4.pdf. (29 March 2012). SCHEIN, E. 1996. 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