Issues Surrounding Group Leadership - Report Example

Issues Surrounding Group Leadership/Management (Or a Lack Thereof Table of Contents Introduction 3 Analysis 4 Implications 9 Recommendations 11 Conclusion 14 14 14 References 15 Introduction Work in a group is always considered to provide an extra benefit to the individuals wherein channelization of knowledge and proper delegation of resources form the base for their competencies. Management leaders of every decade have been looking forward to form a strong work force for its better sustainability, with group work in focus. Nowadays, every large and small enterprise has recruited group leaders for improving productivity of employees. Notably, when participating in the group assignments, I could also observe the benefits of sharing knowledge and teamwork to enrich individual skills and capabilities (Winkler, 2010). As per the learning I could obtain, connectivity and communication among group members, along with the need to be continuously in check for the progression of the project in hand, managers often need to ensure that they check their mails 24x7. Going through emails, with the help of technological innovations, organisational leaders are able to improve connectivity within the staff members. It is worth mentioning in this context that electronic mail or e-mail is the new medium to reinforce communication process among top to bottom level group members, which we had also implemented in our assignments to communicate the progress of the project at various stages. Presently, most of the private enterprises have been using e-mail for sharing day-to-day operational matters. This new age invention has further developed professionalism among every individual. In the past decade, due to communication gap, members within a team often had to face obstructions when interacting with their senior members or other members sharing same responsibilities. In the modern scenario, e-mails have bridged the gap among top to bottom level employees. With the help of e-mails, a bottom level employee can easily communicate with their top-level managers. This email communication has been reducing group issues among various organisations, which also proved highly effecting in our group assignments as well (Hayes & et. al., 2004). However, managers getting involved in checking email for continuously 24x7 have its disadvantages too. In this context, the discussion further aims to elaborate the importance of 24x7 email checking when concentrating on group leadership and management. Analysis In the modern scenario, technology plays a vital role to assure the overall organizational development. Email services are herewith considered as one of the most preferred and commonly used medium for communication within the members of the same of different organizations or groups. Nowadays, most leaders prefer using emails for effective monitoring on work force. It is with the same objective that managers are often observed to be engaged in checking their mails continually for 24x7. It has been seen that checking mail 24x7 has proved highly effective for planning, investigating, analyzing, managing team-work and evaluating group performance overall (Ramakrishnan, 2013). As I could observe during my group assignments, the 24x7 email checking activity helped in effective planning of the group responsibilities. My further research to the context helped me identify that with the help of email checking, managers can better plan their work force, which in turn also strengthens thinking process of the group members to a substantial extent. It was also observed that continuous checking of mail for 24x7 creates a positive impact among leader/manager by upraising their efficiency within the paradigm (Ramakrishnan, 2013). On the flipside, 24x7 checking mail activity has improved managerial thinking about work process, as the professionals can easily identify and rectify their mistakes, which could have otherwise hampered work quality and productivity of work force. To be noted in this regards, traditionally, due to lack of connectivity among top to bottom level employees, organizations has been faced low productivity. However, this particular issue was mitigated to a substantial extent, with the imposition of this particular activity, wherein managers preferred checking their mails on a 24x7 basis. In subsequence, the inter and intra group conflicts could be minimized among the group members. Through email services, managers/employees can investigate organizational problems easily (Ramakrishnan, 2013). The email service also proved effective for analyzing any internal and external problem faced by the organization. It is also worth mentioning in this context that most of the time, organizational personnel lack understanding to the actual reason of low productivity, which in long run affects their sustainability to a substantial extent. To rectify this problem, mail checking services has helped managers/employees during analysis of their actual reason of failure (Ramakrishnan, 2013). Undoubtedly, continuous mail checking by manager/employee has helped to improve communication among work group. With the help of email checking for 24x7, managers/employees have become more alert about extra activities of groups and thereby have been able to delegate responsibilities in a more objective oriented manner. Through email services, managers/employees have developed a friendly relation emphasizing team building in future. As per my understanding, continuous email checking has enhanced an understanding among top to bottom level employees. Accordingly, employees have learnt to quickly adjust themselves in a new team, wherein due to lack of interaction among same level employees lacked in forming a successful group. Altogether, the 24x7 mails checking by managers/employees have improvised understanding level among every employee of organization (Ramakrishnan, 2013). When relating to the evaluation process, I was able to observe that 24x7 checking mail by managers/employees has improved productivity as well as product or/and service quality amid organizations, as it had in our group. The email services also improved top to bottom level employee relations. Through email services, managerial heads can easily find actual reasons of low productivity. The managerial heads can provide counseling and motivate employee through mail reply. On the other hand, it has been observed that email service has improved work quality of group members, helping them to be mentored continuously and be encouraged to deliver their projects on time. Due to low connectivity, bottom level employees are hardly able to clear their doubts about projects. With the help of email services, bottom level employees can easily clear their doubts and deliver projects on time, and thus, by obtaining the assistance of the supervisors, employees work efficiency has enriched with the help of email services (Ramakrishnan, 2013). Concerning its effects on evaluation, email service helped employees to reduce conflicts and improve connectivity overall. Nowadays, every manager/employee thus prefers checking email massages 24x7 to remain updated about organisational operational activities. For instance, managerial heads or personnel in the leadership position intend to use email services for providing information about operational matters of organisations. On the other side, middle and bottom level employees tend to access email services for remaining updated about operational as well as work related matters. Email services can hence be argued as quite effective for every organisational personnel. Nevertheless, email services can also be time consuming as well. At the time of emergency, organisational personnel can send a document through email attachments (Ramakrishnan, 2013). In the recent era, globalisation has changed the working pattern of organisations to a substantial extent. Nowadays, every multinational has spread its business to varied countries. Every organisational policies and programmes are different from each other today. Employees of these companies have followed the head office’s curriculum. With the help of e-mail services, managerial heads are updated about organisation’s operational policies. In this regard, employees or managers have been much emphasised on checking emails 24x7 for updating themselves about day-to-day activities. On the other hand, email services has increased productivity rate of employees (Ramakrishnan, 2013). In the past decade, companies, with diverse branches in every country, had to face many challenges to work flawlessly because of delay in received data. To access important official data, employees or managers have to check their mails 24x7. Besides, access to important official data organisations used email services for improving connectivity among leaders and subordinates. In the management studies, theories such as the Leader-Member Exchange Theory, have focused on describing the two-way relationship among managers and subordinates wherein the leader-member exchange theory promotes positive employment experiences and organisational effectiveness, made possible through continuous exchange of information, as done through emails (Ramakrishnan, 2013). With the help of 24x7 email services, leader-member exchange theory can be supposed to impose a positive effect within organisations. Leader-member exchange theory has generated high quality relationship and satisfaction among group management. To avoid group issues among leaders/managers, organisations implement email services. In an organisation, group leaders are considered to be the main resources for enhancing productivity and standard of products or/and services. Source: (Krishnan, 2005) In organisations, due to hectic pressure of achieving organisational goal, group leaders have been engaged in intra or inter group conflicts. As a result, the group often had to witness significant problems in dealing with their exact goal. It was in this context that to stabilise the productivity growth of workforce, email services is used, which in turn minimized confusion of bottom level employees. On the other hand, email services has improvised leader-member exchange pattern. The main objective of this theory is to improve leader and member relation in workplace (Krishnan, 2005). As per my observation, due to miscommunication, bottom level employees lacked adequate access to the actual message of top-level managerial head. This kind of miscommunication generated industrial dispute or conflict among organisations too. In order to reduce misunderstanding among organisations, leader or mangers need to check their mail 24x7, enhance inter-personal communication with middle, and bottom level group members. Implications New age technologies have always created positive as well as negative effects among human beings. Likewise, email services implementation in organisational levels has developed positive impacts on the efficiency of workplace communication. With the help of email services, top to bottom level employees can easily interact each other. The positive implications of email checking by leaders/managers 24x7, have improved connectivity within organisations. On the other side, this 24x7 mail checking by leader/manger has generated negativity within organisation. For checking email 24x7, managers/leaders always have to look forward for it. To improve connectivity among employees, some managers/leaders have been too friendly with them. This kind of over friendly attitude has certainly created a bad impression among employees, which in turn signifies the negatives of checking 24x7 mails (Malloch, & Porter-O’Grady, 2009). With the help of checking mails 24x7, leaders’ thinking ability has also been observed to be enhanced on a day-by-day basis. The knowledge skills of a leader/manager have been during checking mails 24x7. However, from a critical understanding, it can be asserted that the habit of checking mails 24x7 has developed a positive as well as negative affect among leader/manager. While on one hand, this helps a manager to quickly solve any kind of problem, which has arisen among bottom level employee, the pressure of continuous checking mails have generated a high level of stress among the managers (KingJr, 2011). Through the persuading activity, leader/manager can instantly provide accurate suggestion to middle and bottom level employees. The habit of checking mails 24x7 has improved leader/manager skill of thinking, wherein they also gain an enhanced level of confidence to steer the team with the right kind of motivation to organisational work force (Joe, 2013). The 24x7 mail checking habit has improved negotiating skills of leaders/managers further. To be an effective leader/manager of organisations, individuals must attain some qualities. The quality of negotiating made an individual a perfect leader/manager. As a leader/manager, has known its workforce positively. For that reason, continued checking of mails 24x7 has enhances the leaders negotiating skills. And thus, leader/manager can better negotiate its work force for better productivity (Guskey, 2000). With the help of testing activity leader/manager can motivate employees more positively and provide helpful advices for improving their performances in future times. Through the mail, leader/manager has to follow multiple work schedules, which has to be performance on time by work force (Gibson, 2000). Through encouraging such an activity leader/manager can provide better advices to improve work performance of the employees. This activity also helps during making performance appraisal of employees. Through this mechanism, a leader/manager is also aware of employees’ strengths and weaknesses. Accordingly, leaders/mangers gain the opportunity to provide encouragement to every employee (Gerybadze & et. al., 2010). Accordingly, 24x7 checking mail has improved a leader/manager to implement their varied activities like thinking, persuading, negotiating, testing and encouraging. It is noteworthy in this context that every activity has a positive as well as a negative impact. Contextually, through these activities, such as thinking, persuading, negotiating, testing and encouraging, leaders/managers can effectively analyse the performance level of employees (Gaynor, 2003). Recommendations From the discussion conducted above, it becomes apparent that the email service has been enhancing connectivity as well as leadership quality of an individual. The habit of leader/manager is checking mail 24x7 has improved knowledge base and understanding of employees’ motivational needs. Hence, continuous mail checking activity of leader/manager has upgraded brainstorming technique. With the help of mail checking activity, the leadership qualities of an individual are also quite likely to get polished day-by-day. The mail checking activity has improved decision-making processes and other management functions more effectively than previous. Every leader has to follow certain management functions, such as planning, organising, motivation and evaluating (Djoleto, 2013). Email services has been enhancing productivity and quality of an organisation, while simultaneously, it has made leaders/managers more technology perceptive. The activity of checking mail 24x7 has enhanced the stress level of leaders/managers. To minimize stress level of leader/manager organisational heads also provide them counselling and motivate them. Most of the time, it has been observed that due to high stress level, group leader/manager lose their confidence level and cannot handle the pressure of work. To increase confidence level of group leader/manager, organisational heads therefore needs to motivate them. This motivation will help to enhance leader/manager performance level (Dean & Bowen, 1994). On the other side, through planning, investigating, analysis, team working, presenting, and evaluating have developed a strong understanding about employee performance. 24x7 email checking has also enhanced organisational growth. The use of technology in workplace has always enriched organisational progress. Accordingly, leader/manager and employee all are working with more advance way. The production standard has also improved through the use of technology. However, when concerning the limitations of using 24x7 mail checking technique, in most of the organisations, some employees are not friendly with technology. This kind of unfriendly use of technology has created a negative impact on the overall productivity of the organisation. To reduce this kind of negativity from employees, leader/manager have to organise a short training session. These short sessions have always generated a positive impact among employees. Moreover, technology has been changing day-by-day, owing to which, leader/managers have to organise training and counselling sessions for middle/bottom level employees (Cram101 Textbook Reviews, 2012). Due to huge pressure of work, middle/bottom level employees have often been observed to lose their concentration and interest on work. To enhance employee concentration and interest for their work, leaders/managers have to introduce new recreational activities like arranging a short tour or organising get-togethers with family and friends. These recreational activities always prove effective for increasing concern ratio and interest about work. Thus, to minimize employee stress level every organisation should emphasise the work-life balance of the leaders to minimise their level of stress (Bowen & Lawler, 1995). Due to global economic pitfall, every organisation needs to minimize its total production cost and earn maximum profit. With the implementation of email services, leaders can also help the organisations to minimize its expense cost and improve productivity level wherein the email service has proved very effective for small as well as large enterprises. For email services, output level has maximum than input level, owing to which, it has been in application by almost every size of organisation belonging from every sector. On the other hand, email service has reduced total time span of workplace. Nowadays, due to email services, employees are able to produce their work report in an error free manner, within time (Berwick, 1996). In the past decade, every organisation used to conduct their operations manually. It not only increased time requirements within the organisational processes of the organisation, but also demanded greater focus of the organisational managers, raising issues of errors. Correspondingly, with the help of email services, employees can deliver product and/or services on time. Through email services, accurate project reports have been delivered to managerial heads on time. On the other hand, operational activities of organisations have also strengthened with the implementation of email services, as continuous checking of emails by leader/manger has enhanced efficiency of employees’ working pattern. Use of new age technology has also made employees smarter and more effective (Barry, 2014). The access to internet has also improved the thinking level of group members. Similarly, access to email for 24x7 has allowed the leader/manager to remain updated with their responsibilities. As observed from the study, the service has also changed the working pattern of new age organisations. Email services have also made all level employees more attentive to their work. Such a mechanism has allowed employees to manage their work more independently. Through email services and instant messaging, middle and bottom level employees can easily clear their doubts and confusions. Observably, due to confusion and doubt, employees often face issues delivering projects on time (Bader, 2007). With the help of email services, employees can consult with their leaders/managers and clear doubts within a short time span. In this context, every organisation has to implement email services to reinforce employee productivity (Armistead,2001). Conclusion Based on the above discussion it can be observed that 24x7 email checking has improved leadership quality of an individual. In the competitive age, every organisation needs to sustain and gain maximum profit. Through email services, connectivity level has increased among leaders/managers, as well as among middle and bottom level employees. It was observed in this context that employees can work confidently on their projects. In the past decade, most employees face major problems presenting their projects within deadline. Due to low connectivity, varied confusions also arise among employees that in turn increase their level of conflicts. Nowadays, with the help of email services and instant messaging, employees are in tough with their supervisors to clear their doubts instantly and deliver projects on time. Continuous checking of mails by leaders/managers has also increased their thinking ability. Accordingly, leaders/managers can suggest the right kind of advice and motivation to middle/bottom level employees. Conclusively, stating, with the advent of email service organisational output level has been increased day-by-day. References Armistead, L., 2001. Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Information Warfare and Security. Academic Conferences Limited. Bader, B. M., 2007. Leader-Member Exchange and Work Outcomes: A Multiple Leadership Perspective. University Of Lethbridge, pp. 1-115. Barry, T. R., 2014. Top 10 Leadership Qualities Of A Project Manager. Project time, [Online] Available at: http://www.projecttimes.com/articles/top-10-leadership-qualities-of-a-project-manager.html [Accessed December 4, 2014]. Berwick, D. M., 1996. A Primer on Leading the Improvement of Systems. Education & Debate, pp. 1-4. Bowen, D. E. & Lawler, E. E., 1995. Empowering Service Employees. Massachusetts Institute Of Technology, [Online]Available at: http://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/empowering-service-employees/ [Accessed December 4, 2014]. Cram101 Textbook Reviews, 2012. E-Study Guide For: Business Communication Essentials: Communication, Communication. Cram101 Textbook Reviews. Dean, J. W. & Bowen, D. E., 1994. Management Theory and Total Quality: Improving Research and Practice Through Theory Development. The Academy Of Management Review, pp. 392-418. Djoleto, W., 2013. Electronic Commerce and Organizational Leadership: Perspectives and Methodologies. Idea Group Inc. (IGI). Gaynor, M., 2003. Network Services Investment Guide: Maximizing ROI in Uncertain Times. John Wiley & Sons. Gerybadze, A., & et. al., 2010. Innovation and International Corporate Growth. Springer Science & Business Media. Gibson, J. D., 2000. Multimedia Communications: Directions and Innovations. Academic Press. Guskey, T. R., 2000. Evaluating Professional Development. Corwin Press. Harris, K. & et. al., 2007. Personality, Leader-Member Exchanges, and Work Outcomes. Institute of Behavioural and Applied Management, pp. 1-16. Hayes, J. F. & et. al.,2004. Modelling and Analysis of Telecommunications Networks. John Wiley & Sons. Joe, M. M., 2013. Modelling Future Generation E-mail Communication Model for Improving Quality of Service. Journal Of Emerging Technologies In Web Intelligence, Vol. 5, No. 4, pp.1-10. KingJr, J., 2011. Strategic Leadership: Leading Change in a New Age. Trafford Publishing. Krishnan, V. R., 2005. Leader-Member Exchange, Transformational Leadership, and Value System. Electronic Journal of Business Ethics and Organization Studies, pp. 1-8. Malloch, K. & Porter-O’Grady, T., 2009. The Quantum Leader: Applications for the New World of Work. Jones & Bartlett Publishers. Ramakrishnan, K., 2013. Managerial Leadership in Multicultural Organisations. Phi Learning Pvt. Ltd. Winkler, I., 2010. Contemporary Leadership Theories: Enhancing the Understanding of the Complexity, Subjectivity and Dynamic of Leadership. Springer Science & Business Media. Read More