Transformational, Executive, and Transactional Leadership - Assignment Example

University

Exam

1. Contemporary views of leadership include transformational leadership, executive leadership and transactional leadership. Transformational leadership identifies a leader as one who seeks to align the employees with the goals and objectives of the organization. Employees, therefore, work with a lot of focus in achieving what the organization intends to get through its mission and vision. They put aside their personal goals and work together for the overall good of the company. It involves a lot of motivation through inspirational visions, as well as charisma on the side of the leader. Executive leadership involves a leader’s ability to influence and manage the employees of an organization through structures that involve organizational strategies and goals. The leader oversees decision-making processes. Transactional leadership involves an equation between employee effort and the reward that they get. It is highly focused on remuneration based on the performance of an individual. A leader uses incentives to boost the morale of employees (Bertocci, 2009).

The transformational leadership view is more important than the rest due to its focus on the goals and objectives of the organization. It can assist a company in its growth due to the kind of inspiration that employees get through the vision of presented by its leader. The leader’s charisma can drive development and profitability even in the absence of an adequate reward system.

However, the transactional and executive views are not to be done away with. They are effective depending on the needs and objectives of employees and their employers. Therefore, combining the three would result into a great organization that is inspired by a vision, guided by corporate structures and with adequate employee rewards based on their performance.

2. The performance and satisfaction of a group is determined by several factors, including group member resources, external conditions, the structure of the group, the tasks and the processes involved in the group (Singh, 2007). The group member resources involve skills and abilities that each group member brings to the group. Having a strong set of skills in a group can ensure that it completes its tasks fast and satisfactorily, leading to excellent performance. External conditions such as organizational structures, policies and regulations can either limit or promote the performance of a group. The structure of a group, including its size, also affects its performance. Group processes like decision-making and conflict resolution can either lead to delayed execution or completeness of acceptable solutions. Group tasks, their delegation and effective communication can also affect the performance and satisfaction of the entire group.

The best way to analyze the performance of a group would be through an assessment of key performance indicators, as well as the achievement of overall group goals. Performance indicators can focus on the group as a whole, as well as the individuals tasked with individual duties that contributed to the overall performance of the group. The level to which the goals of the group are achieved can also determine the effectiveness of the team. Using key performance indicators and goal assessments eliminates any form of bias in evaluation as it analyzes measures that were set by the team before it began its work.

The satisfaction of a group can best be measured through surveys that are anonymous and open. These surveys can be geared towards identifying the overall attitude of the group members towards the group and its performance. They can also identify the expectations of the group members as compared to what they actually got in terms of rewards after the group work was completed either completely or up to a certain point.

3. The four people strategies are: forecasting the demand and supply for different skill sets required in different jobs; attracting employees, and especially women, retirees and the young generation; educating and upping the skills of the workforce; and retaining the best workforce (Strack, 2014. In predicting the supply and demand of skills and jobs, employers and organizations will be in a position to plan for their workforce. They can introduce supporting initiatives in colleges and universities so as to mold youngsters into future employees. Attracting employees involves providing a platform for growth and compensation that is good enough to want workers to be associated with a certain organization. Once these employees are acquired, they will need to be trained, and on a regular basis so as to always be at par or ahead of the technology or industry practices of their time. Current knowledge allows for competence in jobs, and gives an organization a competitive advantage. Retaining a reliable workforce involves ensuring that employees do not step away from an organization after it has invested in creating experts in them.

Forecasting the demand and supply of jobs and skills is the most important people strategy that can help protect employers, organizations and economies from the looming workforce crisis. This strategy sums up all other strategies and acts as a foundation for creating a reliable workforce in the future.

Through this prediction, economies can plan on how to create reliable future employees through relevant school programs and curricula. They can also identify recruitment strategies that will bring in experience and gender balance. Additionally, they will ensure companies come up with strategies that will enable them retain a reliable workforce.

4. The rational model for making decisions has 8 main steps. The first step is the identification of the problem itself. It is followed by the identification of criteria that will be used in making decisions regarding solving the problem. Thirdly, weights are allocated to the criteria so as to give them priorities and enhance their selection. Alternatives are then developed. The fifth step involves the analysis of these developed alternatives. In the sixth steps, the alternatives are selected. They are then implemented in the seventh step. The eighth and final step involves the evaluation of the effectiveness of the decision that was made (Nieuwenhuizen, Rossouw & Badenhorst, 2008).

A manager can use all the steps, from the first to the eighth, to make a decision. Following all the steps is essential in making a decision in an organization, especially if the decision involves crucial business processes and outcomes. The steps also allow for effective decision-making in groups. Managers can be part of groups that are involved in certain company projects. Therefore, they could be put in a position where they are required to make decisions that are not biased and that cater for the overall good of the group and institution. The decision-making process provides a guideline for making good decisions.

At times, managers are faced with situations in which they have to make swift and informed decisions. Without a guideline, and by failing to follow all the eight steps, they could leave out crucial alternatives that could have saved the day and might end up appearing as incompetent in their management roles. Therefore, it is crucial that managers follow all these steps, and even have a template of them so that it can be easy to make swift and reliable decisions that do not jeopardize their organization, its employees and its reputation.

5. The holacracy organizational structure is one that removes power from a hierarchy and distributes it across an organization (Robertson, 2015). It succeeds in its implementation through the use of roles, instead of having people assigned positions that they use to micromanage the people with ranks below theirs.

In a holacracy, roles are created that have certain responsibilities, rules, goals and accountabilities. People across the organization are then assigned these roles based on their responsibilities in the groups that they work. The roles are defined on a regular basis, depending on the projects or operations that an organization is undertaken. The roles depend on the work, and not on the people that should run them as is with the traditional hierarchical structure. In the holacracy, decisions are made in teams. Authority is localized per individual or team depending on the role and the local decisions are respected. This structure does not involve the fixed positioning of individuals. Instead, depending on the work involved, roles change on a regular basis so as to fit requirements of a job or project.

A tech company like Apple can implement this type of organizational structure in its operations. It would create teams that deal with the various developmental projects such as the creation of iPhones, iPads, MacBook, Mac OS and iOS. Teams can be created with regard to these projects such that each team will have roles that are geared towards successful completion of respective projects. Individuals can then be assigned roles in the teams and allowed to make technical and organizational decisions affecting their projects. In the production of the iPhone, for example, roles can be developed as follows: team leader; application development; hardware design; iOS integration and prototype presentation. Individuals assigned to these roles will take up the respective responsibilities and ensure the effective rollout of the product without micromanagement.

6. Personality job-fit models include the person-environment model and the person-performance model. The former relates the working of an individual with the environment in which they are working. This environment involves both the people someone is working with, as well as the type of people they work with. The model relies on the assumptions that most people often work well when in an environment that is filled with people that are similar to them in skill or performance. By working with artists, for example, other artists get inspired and feel comfortable. People with certain skills work best when with people of similar skills (Dhar & Prestige Institute of Management and Research, 2000).

The person-performance model identifies the fit of someone’s job depending on how they do it, regardless of the environment. It depends on whether they are comfortable with physical activities, theory, creativity, volunteer work, competition or precision. This model relates the personality of an individual directly to their preferences with regard to jobs and tasks.

The best model to use is the person-performance model. Through this model, an organization can identify the personality of an individual and relate it to the jobs that they do. As such, they can determine whether or not the individual is fit for the job or can perform effectively in it. A person with a preference for physically demanding jobs such as those of mechanics and engineers, for example, can be seen as one with a realistic personality. Therefore, they are fit for manual jobs. On the other hand, an individual who is analytical and critical in their thinking, as well as curious in finding out about things that they do not understand can be seen as having an investigative personality. They can be selected as lawyers, detectives or mathematicians because they fit jobs that involve thinkers.

7. Controls that a manager can use to affect change in the goals of an organization include feedforward, feedback and concurrent control (Kreitner, 2009). Feedforward control involves setting up measures and implementing change before an activity occurs. For example, in the construction of a vehicle, motor companies incorporate airbags to protect drivers and passengers from getting hurt during accidents. Feedback controls, on the other hand, involve coming up with, and implementing measures after an activity has occurred. They rely on occurrence and then implement curative and corrective measures. In concurrent controls, changes are put in place as the activity takes place. They are in parallel to the occurrence of the activity. For example, a manager who walks around talking to employees as they go on with their work and correcting them along the way is in the process of using a concurrent control to implement change.

The feedforward control is the most important control for a manager who is implementing change. It allows them to come up with solutions to problems that are yet to occur. Therefore, when such controls are implemented effectively, the final product or project is extremely successful. Additionally, it calls for intensive research and predictive analysis, resulting in the identification of problems that would have been missed out had feedforward control not been established in change management.

Overall, even with the implementation of feedforward controls in the implementation of organizational change, a manager should ensure that they factor in other controls even after the activity or project is completed. The concurrent and feedback controls should not be ignored once the feedforward control is applied. They can be useful to the organization at a later stage of the activity undergoing change.