Developing Management Skills - Assignment Example

 Chapter 1- Developing Self-Awareness Managers may adopt an internal locus of control in a complex or dynamic business environment. For example, a manager may adopt a directive/ autocratic management style when there is a crisis or to avoid risky deviations. Such a manager views the success of the organizations as directly attributable to his or her management style. The manager loses the connection with employees since the management style is unilateral; such that employees become frustrated. In addition, the manager may overwhelm his or her responsibilities trying to perform everything as he or she deems fit. The management style may end up frustrating the manager’s efforts in relation to deriving support from employees. The internal locus of control attributes end results to individual efforts; that is, it is unilateral. On the other hand, high tolerance for ambiguity explains how individuals cope with uncertainty. Chapter 2-Managing Personal Stress Psychological resiliency is the ability to endure psychological risk factors/ stressors without exhibiting psychological dysfunction (such as post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD). On the other hand, social resiliency is the ability to withstand stressors that emanate from the social and environmental spheres. In addition, social resilience is an analytical framework that emanates from the concept of social vulnerability whereas psychological resilience emanates from psychological stressors. Individuals can manage personal stress from the work-life balance by adopting the analytical framework that forms the foundations of social resiliency. The work-life balance entails the coping, adaptive, and transformative capacities that represent social resilience. Stress levels are significantly reduced when the work-life balance is approached with the three ‘pillars’ of social resiliency. Psychological resiliency is the best possible mechanism to respond to an experience of personal failure. For example, an individual may set performance benchmarks in his or her area of expertise. Such benchmarks could be accompanied by rewards. The benchmarks and rewards would act as intrinsic and extrinsic motivators of success in an attempt to erase the previous experience of personal failure. Chapter 3-Solving Problems Analytically and Creatively The analytical problem-solving approach commences with defining the problem. This step involves differentiating objective and subjective opinions while specifying the underlying causes of the problem. It is at this step that all the relevant parties are tapped for information to identify whose problem it is. In addition, this step avoids ambiguity on how the problem is presented. On the other hand, the creative problem-solving approach commences with preparation. This stage is simple and is limited by scope. It entails exploring the challenge, generating ideas, and preparing for action. Therefore, the preparation stage is highly subjective. Commitment to an existing perspective can be a conceptual block to creative problem solving due to perceptual stereotyping. For example, management may overly rely on outsourcing for most business operations. In the recent past, most organizations are outsourcing the recruitment functions of the human resource department from recruitment firms to reduce staff turnover. Management may decide to outsource the purchasing functions to ensure that the optimal level of inventory is maintained. Outsourcing the purchasing function is a commitment to an existing perspective. A manager can invest in training employees on inventory management. Such training would impart the necessary expertise on how to maintain the desired level of inventory based on productivity and sales. The purchasing department may, therefore, work independently towards inventory management. Chapter 4-Building Relationships by Supportive Communication Monica’s and Randy’s case are issues concerning attitude and ability respectively. A manager ought to consider to what extent attitudes and abilities limit performance for the two parties. The obstacle of defensiveness by Randy may compel him to rely on self-protection rather than listening. The interpersonal relationship between Randy and the manager may be inhibited. On the other hand, the obstacle of disconfirmation may compel Monica to focus on building her self-worth if she feels that her post within the organization is insignificant. She may lose the motivation to work, withdrawal of responsibilities, and loss of respect for the offending party. A manager may use supportive communication based on congruence to overcome the obstacles of defensiveness and disconfirmation by Randy and Monica respectively. For example, the manager may decide to set performance standards to pass along advice and information to Randy. The standards would coach Randy to better performance. On the other hand, the manager may counsel Monica on how to improve her attitude. Monica ought to recognize that her attitude is of critical importance to effective business performance. Chapter 5-Gaining Power and Influence Both personal and positional power influence individual performance within an organization. Personal power is derived from personal attributes such as expertise, effort, legitimacy of behavior, and personal attraction. On the other hand, positional power emanates from an individual’s position and task assignments within the organization. In addition, positional power emanates from centrality, flexibility, relevance of tasks and organizational priorities, and visibility of task performance. A manager may source personal power from legitimacy to influence others within the organization. For instance, a manager may place loyalty to employees as a premium on quality business performance. Such loyalty ought to create a distinctiveness that improves attention from the employees. An individual with strong human capital (expertise) may fail to influence others within the organization if he or she adopts the retribution strategy to transform power into influence. By forcing others to do what the individual says would threaten and exert undue pressure on performance among the employees, therefore, result in ethical violations. Chapter 6-Motivating Others An imposing approach to employee performance can increase productivity in the short-term since the manager would issue orders that must be followed by the employees. The imposing approach exploits the employees to increase productivity in the short-term but may lead to dissatisfaction in the long-run. Therefore, productivity may reduce in the long-term due to reduced employee performance, high employee turnover, and absenteeism. A narrow focus on extrinsic outcomes as a motivational philosophy may be implemented indiscriminately posing the risk of undermining the motivation of high performers. The link between performance and rewards if overlooked would prove difficult to retain the motivation of high performers. An integrative motivation strategy focuses on satisfaction and performance equally. For example, a manager may focus on job specialization during delegation. As such, every assignment will be issued to the best possible employee who can handle it to the best of his or her ability. Performance would be boosted as every employee focuses on working in his or her area of interest or expertise. Job satisfaction and performance would be achieved when managers use job specialization to delegate duties. Chapter 7-Managing Conflict There are numerous issue-focused workplace conflicts that stem from environmentally induced stress. For example, all departments within an organization submit their budgets at the beginning of the fiscal year. After the management disburses the funds, one department may feel that another department was favored in the disbursement. Members of different departments may become embroiled in disputes over resource requests. A manager may apply either the accommodating approach or collaborative approach to solving such disputes. The accommodating approach to resolving the issue-based conflict would focus on cooperation and a sense of unassertiveness. The management would neglect its interests in favor of accommodating the wishes of the department. On the other hand, a collaborative approach would seek to focus on the needs of both the management and the department. In this way, both parties settle on a common ground where their interests are wholly or partly considered. Conflicts may ruin the relationship between individuals. The negotiating strategy may either be distributive or integrative depending on the level of conflict. If the conflict poses the risk of ruining such a relationship, it will be better to consider accommodating the interests of both parties using the collaborative approach. On the other hand, if the level of conflict does not place the relationship at stake, a distributive bargaining perspective may be adopted. Chapter 8-Empowering and Delegating Task identity enables employees to own a particular task. Employees achieve a sense of accomplishment when they see the end result of a task that they have performed from the beginning to the end. In addition, task identity enhances employee motivation and job satisfaction. Empowered employees have a sense of trust. It is through empowerment that employees feel that they are trusted and will be treated equitably. Employee empowerment surpasses the hierarchies within the organization. Therefore, trust is a direct consequence of employee empowerment. Managers with a Theory X attitude blame the employees for non-empowerment. For example, a manager may fail to delegate duties if he feels that employees would not perform them to the expected standard. Such a manager ends up overwhelming himself with tasks. The attitude that employees would not perform the tasks as required is an example of Theory X that hinders employee empowerment. Chapter 9-Building Effective Teams and Teamwork As a new leader in a team, one has to reinforce their ability to handle the task at hand by ensuring the team that they can protect them from both internal and external forces that may affect their success as a team. On the other hand, articulation of vision involves aligning the vision of the leader with that of the team in order to ensure collective success of the team in meeting the same goals. Timing is important in promoting effective feedback as this allows for the provision of feedback that is more specific and thus can be well anchored into specific contexts. This makes the feedback even more helpful in solving different issues within the organization. Team leaders can help the their teams which may be stuck in the storming stage to forge forward through managing conflicts, legitimizing individuality related productive expressions, replacing counter dependence among the team members with interdependence, and fostering processes that involve consensus building. Chapter 10-Leading Positive Change Managers are bound by the processes and rules within which they are expected to perform their pragmatic functional activities. As such, these managers have a role to foster collaboration within the organization through the use of reward, negotiation, coercion, and punishment in achieving sustainability of positive change. On the other hand, leaders have the responsibility of taking risk and provide direction for sustainability of positive change within the organization. The leader can respond to members with negative opinions by articulating the vision of abundance to promote positive deviance and not to correct negative deviance. This is important in challenging the assumptions that are weakly held by such members. A leader can create a positive climate through capitalizing on the strengths of the organization, by spending more time with the strongest performers in the organization in order to empower them more. Reference Whetten, D., & Cameron, K. (2011). Developing management skills (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Read More